Oceanic

“Every thicket has/ a secret and/ every mighty beast/ has a soft underside,” writes Nezhukumatathil (Lucky Fish); it’s something of a thesis for this book, in which she marvels at existence in a sprawling and miraculous world. Her poems invoke a sense of connectedness with similar animal species (“the movement we make when/ we wake, swiping hand or claw or wing across our face”), while also reminding readers of what there is to glean even from wildly different creatures: “A snake heart can slide up and down the length of its body/ when it needs to.” Nezhukumatathil weaves meditations on parenting and family-making among her lavishly rendered evocations of flora and fauna. In the love song “Penguin Valentine,” a male penguin waits for his partner in the dark, incubating their egg: “During those days of no sun, does he/ remember the particular bend// of his mate’s neck, that hint of yellow/ near her ears?” Considered together, Nezhukumatathil’s poems ponder the nature of home, both in terms of individual lives and of broader human existence. “I have been studying the word home,/ as if studying for a quiz, trying to guess/ answers to questions before they are asked,” she writes. The collection’s mix of free and formal poems strikes different moods, but throughout Nezhukumatathil’s voice is consistent in its awe. (Apr.)