First comes love, then comes surgery; complications ensue. The poet describes life events in three acts: the magical courtship and marriage to a woman he met by chance, the subsequent devastation following his third divorce and below-the -knee amputation of his left leg to ease the pain of a congenital deformity. What remains is an elegy to love, loss and letting go. The poems exist in a kaleidoscopic landscape before concluding with a beautiful homage to Mary Oliver and an acceptance of the existence of psychic and physical pain as a part of life. Love & Surgery is the poet's third collection in his "Life Studies" including boy (2012) and Lucky Man (2005).