fog and other atmospheric conditions

The poems in Fog and Other Atmospheric Conditions seem to hang poised, expectant for light to wipe away the untimely loss of a loved one. Addressing the daily things of this world amid the constant presence of death, Portnow discovers not epiphanies but dilemma. Yet precisely because of this, the poems are affirmations. With her photographer’s eye, Portnow zooms in on the “layer of gauze/ between me and the world,” and in the face of uncertainty as the only possible site of “truth,” she craves the “need to know/ the forecast for a year from now.