Relationships, nature, art, love, loss, and beauty---all come to the forefront in the exquisitely rendered poems of Sally Albiso's Moonless Grief.

A poem from Moonless Grief

Cantor

Long ago, wolves sang here
with such triumph they were destroyed.
Now coyotes penetrate the dark
with their hunger, reach through glass,
and this hour's supplication still greater,
its tenor both animal and human.
Is it the Sasquatch of local lore
bellowing as if to make ears bleed?
Roosting among cedars like a bird
crying out for another of its kind,
bipedal stance encouraging a tongue
that ladles words?
Or can it only hoot and scream,
be taught to sign with furred hands
that shatter a two-way mirror?
The howling continues to gnaw at wind.
I lean toward the voice,
let it wash over me like a moonless grief,
listen as if I might answer.