Poems for This Moment
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            The poems follow the evolving relationship between two young men. The speaker, a dyed-in-the-wool romantic, comes from a cold, Midwestern place, his methodical lover a hot, Italian one. College seems close in the rearview mirror. Nights not spent playing pool in bars and mornings without hangovers are novelties. Life is still full of firsts, all sacred: first date, first kiss, first trip together. Seeing, for the first time, his lover’s contact lens case on the bathroom counter is “a historic moment.” All of these romantic milestones create indelible impressions for the speaker. For the older reader, knowing how the strength and intensity of these forever feelings are destined to be challenged and fade, it may create a poignancy.

            Moving in together, the young men play house. Suddenly the kind of cup they drink from matters hugely, and they run around Italy on vacation looking for the same rainbow-colored espresso cups that the speaker’s boyfriend’s mother has in her cluttered, cheerful kitchen. As a way to get closer to his boyfriend, the speaker learns Italian on the Duolingo app, sprinkling charmingly useless phrases into his conversation—and into the poems. The collection’s title is a play on one of them. In that poem, self-awareness pierces the heart like an arrow: “My first instinct is to write/ my name in cursive and draw/ a heart: how can you change/ an instinct?” This instinct he describes may say something too, about how he experiences being gay. Both feelings seem inborn.

            Throughout the collection, details are closely observed. Bodies appear up close and in fragments the way they do in bed: elbows, naked backs, and, most frequently, hands. Powerful images economically convey revealing details about both character and place, such as the speaker’s boyfriend’s black shoes standing near the door in the puddles they make from the snow.

            “Impression, Visibility,” one of the few poems to turn the adoring gaze inward, traces two lineages: those of the speaker’s family and those of gay men (“a heritage I knew nothing/ about”). It debunks dreams of romance and lofty ideas about community. After leaving home and coming out, he confesses deep-seated feelings about the way he hoped the world worked: “I thought leaving would/ somehow make me feel seen. I thought/ I would feel at home. I thought there would be/ someone in bed next to me in the morning.” There’s something sad and grown-up about this, as if the heart-shaped scales have fallen from his eyes. The powerful repetition of that “I thought” beats like a heart.

            This whole collection throbs with feeling: not just with what Bennett has experienced, but with what he wants to experience—the all-consuming intensity of his desire. The collection is a moving valentine to young love, and young ideas about love, and a kind of longing that is uniquely, specifically gay. ____________________________________________________