The Hemophiliac's Motorcycle

Andrews's ( The Brother's Country ) second book, a winner of the 1993 Iowa Poetry Prize, concerns his own illness and a brother's passing. This is delicate writing, as Andrews's voice considers the shadow world of death and retrieves mercy and the mystery of life. The graceful title poem, a hymn of gratitude, describes motocross racing and an injury that threatens the author's life. ``May He adore each moment alive in the whirring world,'' writes Andrews, and ``may the Lord hear our listening, His word like matchlight cupped to a cigarette /the instant before the intake of breath.'' What he does well is take the metaphysical realm and make it physical in words. In ``When Comfort Arrives,'' he writes, ``You're walking, disappearing into a stand of elms / at evening, the way thought disappears before sleep.'' And ``Hymning the Kanawha'' describes his brother's every-other-day dialysis and the disease's progress. The last third of the book is a meditation from a hospital bed. ``Codeine Diary'' was written after Andrews fell on ice and started bleeding in his joints and near his spine. The writing, mostly prose, keeps intimacy and compassion ahead of terror and pain. Andrews clarifies for himself--and us--how life is able to present an ``astonishing calm'' of humor and wisdom, just out of death's reach. (Apr.)