From the Purgatorial state of the epigraph and an opening sequence that riffs on the epic Voyage of St. Brendan the Abbot, through November's titular birds flitting in and out of existence, to the trawler that seems determined to find some sort of escape at the collection's finale, the poems examines various ghost-states on which life and death, light and dark hinge. Then there are encounters with Armstrong returning form the Moon, Virginia Woolf entering its tides, and a badger hinting at a hidden life up there; and there are moments of light, as a pig makes a tapestry, Ireland's forgotten handball alleys are recast in gold, and Lear grows antlers.