April 15, 2024
The attentive and intelligent eighth book from Cohen (Everything) charts childhood, loneliness, and existential unease with the poet’s trademark mix of philosophical clarity and surprise. In “Purchase,” the speaker finds a wallet belonging to a stranger: “You/ have a dental appointment/ in six days. Don’t/ miss it.” Reflecting on her departure from a job at “Tollbooths of America,” the speaker proclaims: “I preferred the short-term pain/ of leaving to the long-term injury/ of staying in one place” and “Do you think about how you’ll feel/ when you get where you’re/ headed? I never think about a place/ until I’ve left it.” Standouts include “Mercurial”: “We were bored/ to tears, breaking// thermometers open,/ letting the silver//drops spill and scatter and/ reassemble in our hands.// We didn’t understand/ how dangerous that was—// our hands, I mean, meaning// to hold anything.” That sentiment is echoed in the equally memorable “Something,” in which the speaker’s call to an automated machine service turns existential: “I’m sorry,/ the machine says. I’m/ having trouble understanding./ Did you miss today’s paper?/ Yes, I say, but that’s not/ the half of it. Sometimes/ I just feel like half/ of me, and even that/ feels like too much.” Though several of these poems feel uncharacteristically slight in their embracing of brevity, any new collection from Cohen is a gift.