Lyn King's sensibility is exquisitely tuned to possibilities. She writes from inside the moment as though from inside a drop of water, extending it in stop-time, looking for the key to the mystery that releases past into future. What was, what could have been, what might be, all of these inhabit her present as translucent partners in a shadow dance. Or perhaps it is the present that is the ghost, searching for a way to anchor itself in the welter of memory and desire.
Black bird flies
directionless, though
one precise elm is
a magnet, pulling.
We are all pulled like that.
Home hooks in our ribs
and hurts when we breathe.
Above us night repeats itself
and this time I listen. Somewhere
the moon rests whole
on all the branches of her decision.
-- from "Direction"
"This poet writes of friends who 'line themselves up along the edges / of my last waking thought, ' or of catching a look between lovers 'awkwardly like a ball / in a game you're not part of.' There are lines equally as fine on almost every page here. And a ponderable thought in every poem. This is a blessedly-unhurried second book, and it's very accomplished." -- Don Coles