Eclipse

The poems in Eclipse illuminate a complicated relationship of a married couple over the course of two decades. They describe the couple's experiences in Mexico, New York City, and Santa Fe, New Mexico and explore the wife's ambivalence throughout their marriage. In San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where they were married, they encountered darkness in the form of cruelty to animals that cast a pall on their pleasure of living as expatriates in a beautiful town. They were newlyweds in New York-enjoying theater (literally encountering more darkness), and numbly reacting to the 9/11 attacks from a distance. The husband had open heart surgery in New York. In Santa Fe, New Mexico, his health gradually began to decline and his wife took on the role of caregiver. The husband fought against losing his independence. After his terrible death, his wife grieved, struggling to let go of remorse. She regretted many things she said and did, both before and after his death. The final poems in the book have a gentler feel, as the wife releases her husband and the burden of grief and turns toward finding her own power.