Light Entering My Bones

I knew the story already but I rushed through part one as if it were a who-dun-it waiting as Albiso in her well-chosen words and poignantimages tracks the elusive tumor and its hopeful demise. I knew the outcome already but facing her death Albiso gracefully turns not towhat will happen but to every direction the soul travels as it lives and contemplates. In heightened language she explores angels and birds trees and light Judaism and flight letting each beloved experience count. The last poem reflects on lines from Neruda to lift us finally intoa radiance that cant be subdued. Alice Derry author of HungerWhat is it we expect from death? Sally Albiso asks in her poem After the Neighbors Dog Dies. In her final book Light Entering My Bones shechronicles the process of dying the pain of cancer treatment and how to inhabit a body she knows will not survive...What time she has left shemeasures by the rhythms of the natural world as if this is the only way she can inhabit a body that has turned against her: I cough up feathers/and dream of singing/light entering my bones....The poems in the book never descend to self-pity but rather find compassion for her husband the one who will be left behind...At their core these are love poems... Brave articulate with a sharp curiosity these poems take us step by stepthrough a journey we know will be our own. At times painful to read you will emerge from the spell of this book with a renewed appreciation andcompassion for your own brief life. Karen Whalley author of My Own Name Seems Strange to Me