The inter-related poems in this collection are conversations between the poet and his father. The book outlines a difficult relationship, and the poems become a gesture toward someone unknown yet terribly familiar, echoing, perhaps, everyman's relationship with his father. The rigor of the father's approach, in language accurate, strenuous and bold, is released. The exchanges are sharp and the relationship is dramatically developed. The table forms a focus and an image, and the city of Cork is made vibrantly real throughout the poem.