Summary

In "Late Poems," the opening poem in the collection, the speaker describes late poems. She compares them to "a letter sent by a sailor / that arrives after he's drowned" (3). Like the letters, late poems are useless. No matter what significant events or feelings the poems try communicating, their ideas drift away. She lists all the words late poems might use, words that sound worn once the poems are gone. Despite the inevitability of the poems' disappearance, the speaker tells the reader to keep singing.

In "Ghost Cat," the speaker describes her former cat’s life with dementia. Before she became ill, she would "writhe around on the sidewalk" for passersby (4). After "she started losing / what might have been her mind," she would stalk the house taking bites from fruits, and howling (4). The speaker imagines the cat wondered at her purpose. Her voice sounded like...