Daylily Called It a Dangerous Moment

In hushed language that's forthright, luminous, and never sensational, Lynch (Sails the Wind Left Behind) makes us feel the shock and enduring aftermath of her rape, that awful, violent moment with "mr. anonymous/ who coaxes & spends you & swings you by another name." She revisits that moment again and again, ever freshly, revealing herself as a "moonlit horse," harnessed or with "a knife pressed into her flank," as a wall and shelves as that knife sharply screws. Afterward, she's the "absent-me," with "Memory: like air/ I walk through and/ disappear," finding the most mundane things taking on dark new meaning (panties are "frillishly dizzy" but also a "bandage or wing"), though the world can be a beautiful place, it's rimmed with danger ("bleeding berries on the nettle-hill"). In the end, Lynch learns that she cannot control and cannot forget but attains a half-peace, some redemption.