David C. Ward's first full-length poetry collection combines wry meditations on twenty-first-century life, work and family with observation of America – its landscapes, its history, its politics. Ward's poems are peopled by those who seem never quite able to inhabit their own lives, from Andy Warhol or Weldon Kees (‘Case closed. / No body was ever found’) to Ward’s own father, playing poker against himself in the early hours. The book’s final section turns an unflinching gaze on the post-9/11 USA and its self-deceptions.