In Molly Bendalls fourth book of poems, the verbal underworld of doing and undoingoath, love charm, prayer, cursebecomes a refuge of tenderness and malediction. One of her generations most subtly imaginative poets, Bendall overhearsand whispers to the readera lost language which is by turns brainy and promiscuous, clueless and inscrutable, bewitching and bereft: a voice skirting a strange silence, a goblin market of snares, cures, trifles, and métiers inconnus. Under the spell of these poems, worlds once imagined break into growls and fingersnaps undoing the rough magic of impersonation.