The prose poems in Patrick Swaney’s debut collection are suspended between a world we think we know and a world where anything can happen. Manatees take over a bathtub,an egg becomes a kite, a man finds a warning in an empty lot and brings it home to raise with his wife. The absurdity at the heart of this collection is rooted in an impulse to examine the rituals of living. Using language that is disarmingly direct, these compact narratives consistently surprise and clarify. In their search for meaning, the poems find truths in the unexpected that remind us what we have in common. poems use the unexpected to reveal truths about the commonplace.