From the "vernal ponds" and "fishy/ vicissitudes" of everyday life laid bare by a charismatic imagination, and lyric intensity ala mode de Sappho, to the fictive "Bodies of muck. Bodies of water. Bodies/of love," Fifer's Caravaggio's Kimono swept me away to a Turkish sidewalk caf?, to the "steel/ wilderness" of his memory, to debts owed Gerald Stern and Tristan Tzara. I've dug into these purgatories, rifts, and gorges to climb back and trumpet the motley pleasures they gave this reader. Reader, you won't regret it. Climb aboard. -Roger Weingarten