Thin Glass
unfolds in the after-hours of a city: neon signs blinking, windows open to the street, sidewalks slick with rain. In this lyric coming-of-age, Degenaars writes with clarity and vulnerability about those caught between responsibility and abandon, love and self-erasure.
These poems follow a speaker in flux-lover, daughter, would-be mother-as she questions what it means to survive, and even celebrate, the in-between. "Despite all I've tried, I am myself. Still," the speaker confesses, reckoning with a self she can't quite shake.
Degenaars searches for meaning in the small details-hailing a cab, folding laundry, changing in a window. This is a collection about how ordinary life can break us open, an unforgettable meditation on what can't be left behind. These poems are emotionally exact and quietly defiant; they explore how longing threatens and shapes us. "Who'd hide from this," the speaker asks, "the almost tender-who'd dare?"