Terry Persun's poems about parting--about all the losses, signified by one parting--swim down/towards the back/of his heart/looking for light, and find it in the swimming itself--in the work the poems do. There is good humor here, at the edge of despair with love and work, and good writing. These poems are clean and sudden as pain, a pain that sometimes drives them into new rooms where they can surprise and energize us with their struggle and with their willingness to see clearly: Each awakening/from darkness comes first/with sudden awe, then/fright, the recollection. --Felda Brown Jackson, author of Fishing With Blood, Do Not Peel the Birches, and The Devil's Child.