Early on, “Devotion” establishes its temporal setting – “Instead, the year begins / with my knees / cramping hardwood, / another man leaving / into my throat” (1-5). However, rather than accepting the new year’s traditional connotations with a sense of hope and new beginnings, Vuong associates it with pain and loss instead. At the yearly marker of festivities for a new age, Vuong is anything but triumphant or celebratory, and places within this snowy, cold time the grief of “another man leaving.” Somewhat ironically, the physicality that Vuong so dearly upholds is barred or even hindered by what has traditionally been accepted as a time of spiritual renewal. Later on, Vuong once again reiterates the exclusionary nature of the new year and the limitations of its promised transformative powers, remarking how “This mouth” – a body part that Vuong repeatedly uses as an expression of physical intimacy – is “the last...