In , Elizabeth Mercurio explores the appetite to leave life and the beauty that binds us to it. Recalling an early suicide attempt, a grandmother’s gift of violets, visiting a famous poet’s grave, and mourning the loss of a heron, the speaker of these poems wonders why: “I love life/but sit with bones.” Throughout the collection the speaker as well as the multi-faceted characters of others such as Ophelia, Camille Claudel, and Anne Sexton, court despair, transcendence, and the hope of survival through poems both tough and tender. Doll is a meditation on despair and the resilience of the “indestructible” heart.