BLACKJACK 22

A sensual meditation on the nature of love in prose poetry form.

Robert Deshaies’ collection of modern poetry starts on a steamy note between two lovers: “You caress me as your curves rhythmically move with synchronous motion of your words.” In subsequent poems, the narrators wonder if they will find love again, if they have reached their breaking point, and if love is stronger than hate. They warn, “I need you, but I won’t be your forever.” On their birthday, they run into a one-night stand. In another poem, they describe the agony of sobering up: “As I lie in the corner, cradled, I shiver and squirm like a fly plucked of its wings, helpless.” The dark side of the narrator’s passion is their anger. It plagues them, and “at times the monster needs to be set free.” The narrator rails against a man named Frank, for whom “brutality was your only way to get out.” Ultimately, however, the author, a self-described “hopeless romantic,” returns to love. In an afterword, he urges readers to “try to love, for without it, we are immoral and desolate creatures living a life void of happiness.” Deshaies’ language is visceral, evident in phrases like “you bite and gnaw at my flesh,” and “Her glance bites me, a snake wandering the unknown field.” He poignantly describes his feelings, like disappointment, in apt, although sometimes clichéd, metaphors: “I expected a garden when you only grew a flower.” But the reader has little sense of who the “I” speaking throughout is or who the “you” addressed in these poems is; the reader feels they are peeking into a stranger’s diary. Scene-setting is scant, leaving the reader a bit unmoored. The poems are interspersed with stunning black-and-white nude photographs by Joseph Deshaies and black-and-white illustrations by Dawnmarie Deshaies.

An emotional, visceral exploration of desire.