Summary

"The Body in August" is a prose poem, and it opens with the speaker describing how, when she was a child, God would place her on her lap and read to her from a thin green book, which was the story of the speaker's life. The speaker then moves to the present, saying that the night before she had yelled at her young son for the first time. He had a dream that night where his mother (the speaker) kicked a squirrel, which turned into a thin green book, which they read together. She then says that when God turned into a child, she put God on her lap, and nursed God.

"Second Line" is dedicated to Robin Coste Lewis's father and son. It addresses a "you," which is her father, and begins with her father falling and breaking his neck. It took...