Both intimate and detached, this poetry compilation delves into the politics and aesthetics of desire--sacred and profane, frantic and serene, refined and grubby. Reflecting upon the comedy of human needs and the vanity of human wishes, these poems consider times of crisis when history is lived and reinvented, myth degenerates into faith, and reason falters. On this journey in which chance always prevails, the mood ranges from cheerful equanimity to gloomy desperation.