In this debut collection, Mark Wunderlich creates a central metaphor of the body as anchor for the soul -- but it is a body in peril, one set in motion through the landscape of desire. In poems located in New York's summer streets, in the barren snowfields of Wisconsin, and along stretches of Cape Cod's open shoreline, the lover speaks to the beloved in the form of lyrical missives, arguments, and intimate monologues. The poems converse with each other; images repeat and echo in an effect that is strange and beautiful. Uniting the collection is an original and consistent voice -- one that has found a hard won stance against the haphazard and negotiates with what is needful and sufficient.