Winter Recipes from the Collective: Poems

When I read this book aloud, it's beautiful. The sounds flow and I feel the melancholy and the joy and the hope and the despair of aging. I can't say that I understand all the poems, but the images will stay with me:

"...how merrily you stood on the balcony,
pelting me with foil-wrapped

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chocolates..."

"I could hear the clock ticking,
presumably alluding to the passage of time
while in fact annulling it."

"...We were sitting on our favorite bench
outside the common room, having
a glass of gin without ice.
Looked a lot like water, so the nurses
smiled at you as they passed,
pleased with how hydrated you were becoming."

"There is no one alive anymore
who remembers me as a baby."

Perhaps the title poem sums up this collection best:

"...The book contains
only recipes for winter, when life is hard. In spring,
anyone can make a fine meal."

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