L anguage is an inexact method of communication. Once used, words immediately abstract the situation. Dan Machlin places the problem at the center of his first collection of poetry. He addresses his work to the body. Not necessarily a singular entity, or even an existence at all: “Lately I have been feeling estranged from you again. Doubtful/you ever existed” (“Letter 2”).

C alifornia shines throughout these poems. Given that a locale chooses a poet as much as the poet chooses the locale, Opstedal’s poems reflect the California beach scene back on itself: “the mist of all those abandoned parking lots strung/out along the coast like dark pearls shimmering” (“In Seeming Waves Returning”). Imbedded in the lines is constant longing for a landscape which never existed, yet in the imaginations of parking lot wandering youth in self-isolation, thrives.