From diagnosis to the initial signs of deterioration to the heartbreaking hour when Wally is released from his body's ruined vessel, is an intimate chronicle of love, its hardships, and its innumerable gifts. We witness Doty's passage through the deepest phase of grief — letting his lover go while keeping him firmly alive in memory and heart — and, eventually beyond, to the slow reawakening of the possibilities of pleasure. Part memoir, part journal, part elegy for a life of rare communication and beauty, evinces the same stunning honesty, resplendent descriptive power and rapt attention to the physical landscape that has won Doty's poetry such attention and acclaim.