Most anthologies strive for inclusivity, but never have such editorial decisions made me cry just reading the table of contents. In this collection, people who've lost babies are parents too; parenthood is hard-won and not always won at all; papas are not just bumbling sidekicks; and even when everything goes right, the dirty little secret behind the joy is its fragility. As Maureen A. Sherbondy sums it up in "Things That Get Lost," a poem about a brief grocery store separation, "Even after I heard his cry,/ that tone-specific inflection, mama,/ pieces of me were so far gone,/ I could not get them back." There is no shortage of humor, as in Sam Apple's blend of myth-debunking journalism and personal essay, and lyrical beauty, as in Dorianne Laux's wintery poem "Augusta." Together they create the world of this anthology, which is, refreshingly, not a world of new plastic products and squealy baby showers but one I actually recognize--of humans, some of them small, some of them big and searching.
