Winner of the Backwaters Prize in Poetry, this collection teems with creatures and cosmic phenomena that vivify and reveal our common struggle toward faith and identity.

I. Hydra In Which I Pray for Stars Longing as Dark Matter Heart as Siphonophore Heart Nebula HR 6819 and the Lovesick Be Star Eye as Firework Jellyfish Psyche as Vampire Squid The Dark Rift Oyster Nebula Sea Butterfly Question Mark Butterfly Trembling Aspen: Needle Fireball Your Never and Always Ring of Fire Via Negativa: New Moon II. Microscopium Butterfly Nebula Prayer for Traversing the Eye The Elysia Sea Slug Soul Nebula Leafy Sea Dragon Playing with Tiger Sharks on the Missile Range Manatee Nebula Crab Nebula Lyrebird Letter Soul as Half Moon Universal Law of Turbulence On Finding the Atom Is Divisible Petri Dish The Most Tiny Quantity of Reality Ever Imagined Moon Rust III. Crux Coalsack Nebula The Blue Hour Bow in the Clouds A Small Good Friday Service at Notre Dame Cathedral Holy Saturday St. Teresa’s Pillow Mary, Wife of Clopas Ghost Nebula On Neptune It Rains Diamonds Geminids Ribbons Super Supernova Trembling Aspen: Twine Exchange Cocoon IV. Telescopium Petition as Praying Mantis Morpho Butterfly Gedankenexperiment Fear as Absent Mountain Lion Hope as Alpha Centauri AB The Mother Gives Us Ophelia in Los Angeles Comet NEOWISE, July 4th Iris Nebula Comma Butterfly Sign of the Times Terror Weather Approaching the Event Horizon Resilience as Daffodil Between 50 and 51 Via Negativa: Corpse Flower V. Phoenix Fast Radio Bursts Detected Close to Earth We Are All God’s Poems Lazarus Rising Phoenix at Padre Serra Church Kepler’s Supernova Remnant Eagle Nebula Strawberry Supermoon Hours Heart as Honeycomb Trembling Aspen: Stitch Stingray Nebula Keyhole Nebula Kilonova as Composition Persephone at the Turn Blue Moon Butterfly Acknowledgments