The poems reveal the sometimes mysterious longings for love and friendship that men and women have for one another, from the beginnings of relationships to their ends. This leads to patterns in poems like "Farm Stars," "Women in Doorways," "A Little Bit in Love with Someone Else," and the way painters like Millet and Hopper light reality. Believers question millennial parents who do not teach their children to believe in God. The longest poem, "Big Cats," is a fight between a rabbi, Samuel, and his wife, Sarah, a Catholic, over whether Old Testament or the New Testament should prevail.