The oppositional emotions that follow the loss of a loved one are beautifully articulated in this poetry collection. While humour, fond remembrance, and wry awareness break through, contrariness tinges many of the poems-rooted in rueful self-examination, in feelings of living at cross purposes with the expected and the polite, and in seeing the world aslant. At the heart of the collection is an unflinching portrayal of the emotional maelstrom that overtook the poet as she faced the death of her only brother. These are poems that mount an opposition; poems that contradict and argue, sometimes in jest, sometimes in deadly seriousness; poems that read unexpected messages into paintings and photographs; and poems that are attuned to the dialectic undercurrents of living.