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Poet, translator, and Brown University professor Swensen’s 20th poetry collection (after And And And) traces the metaphysics of physical objects, animate and not, through a series of prose poems animated by ghostly, complex energy: “a gust of falling leaves bursts in through the open window, spinning down through the stairwell just as the stairs themselves are winding their way upward.” Often in two or three parts, they posit one distinctive perception followed by a variation or revision, as if the poet were constructing brief sonatas out of one epiphanic instance. Swensen etches her precise imagery with music, as in the passage “Through a screen of rain, a single crow seen, a stain on the green of the tree she’s sheltering in,” recognizing that the sights and sounds of the world are mystically intertwined. Evoking the poetry of Ted Hughes, crows frequently appear as enigmatic, haunting familiars, “determined to assert their alterity, they make sure that they’re always facing backward” when perched on statues.