Chad Weeden’s poems are set in contemporary spaces: people navigating complicated logistics, pivoting from one room to another, reaching for the future while trying to put the past to rest. And yet, these lines transport us to a place of betweenness, a world of fertile bardos, Weeden’s speakers navigating the underworld like a contemporary Virgil. Throughout this thrilling debut, a reader is ushered through archetypal domains, realms beyond the one with which we’re so familiar. We’re reoriented to the epic, the continuum that’s always unfolding just beyond our comprehension. This is a book to celebrate, to read and reread.

—John Amen, author of Dark Souvenirs, editor of Pedestal Magazine

These poems are sharp and glittering, poems about desire, relationships, loss. Chad Weeden’s images are powerful, translating emotional states into sirens and flame, fog and stars. There’s danger here, and beauty: “Funny how a flailing ripcord/makes us listen to the wind for the first/and last time.” This is a gorgeous collection by a wonderful poet.

—Becky Hagenston, author of The Age of Discovery and Other Stories