And there I was with the stars hanging above my house like live wiresand the night sky the color of stockings. I stuck out my tongue to taste the skybut could not taste. I inhaled deeplybut could not smell. I used to look to the sky for comfortand now there was nothing, not even a seam, and I looked down and saw that it did not even reach the ground. And my only company was the satellites counting their sleep and the Sorrowful Mother swinging her empty dipper in the darkness, the Sorrowful Mother picking her way through the stars over my roof. And I knew I was nowhere and if I ever took my hands from my ears I would fall.

August Smith is a child telling the truth. Sometimes the truth is he has to listen to the voices of various creatures he's killed speak to him reproachfully, and he shares that with us, because wouldn't we all? Parties abound in this collection and reading it feels like being invited. You can tell Smith wants you there.

And there I was with the stars hanging above my house like live wiresand the night sky the color of stockings. I stuck out my tongue to taste the skybut could not taste. I inhaled deeplybut could not smell. I used to look to the sky for comfortand now there was nothing, not even a seam, and I looked down and saw that it did not even reach the ground. And my only company was the satellites counting their sleep and the Sorrowful Mother swinging her empty dipper in the darkness, the Sorrowful Mother picking her way through the stars over my roof. And I knew I was nowhere and if I ever took my hands from my ears I would fall.

I was coming out of a bar in Manhattan in the rain at night. I felt lonely. Then I thought: there is nothing lonelier than that little guy up there on Mars, never shutting down. And if he's beeping up there, how much lonelier still, that no one can hear it. Still, I like to think the engineers designed him to beep.