As Are Right Fit

Grossberg's As Are Right Fit takes on the complex, messy work of trying to make sense of a parent's life on the occasion of her passing. What moments were pivotal? How did her struggles, obsessions, and ambitions play out? And what legacy she has left for those who loved her? This collection opens with the poet's mother dying of cancer, but ranges widely: to her sixteenth birthday as she holds out her hand to admire a new charm bracelet; to decades of motherhood and work; to late middle age, swirling ice cubes in a tumbler of vodka-and finally to her as a ghost, "dragging the gray lace of itself /across hardwood floors." With wit, invention, and rich detail, these poems remind us that grieving is also a quest for understanding, and that it involves celebrating the joy, humor, and particularity that make each of us, in the hearts of those who love us, indelible.