A lively collection populated by historical icons, each poem a story about the potency of imagination, territories, border-crossings of the mind – among them: the madness of a king who wants to be a swan, Michelangelo chiselling a heart that beats into his David, Tsar Peter with his three pet dwarfs acting as generals in the army, Vera Zasulich who became the world’s first woman terrorist, Robinson Crusoe hunting for the footprints of Friday, Michael Jackson pretending he is Marcel Marceau as he woos Marlene Dietrich in Paris…  From the Introduction:“A profound point becomes apparent as one explores Azarov’s juxtaposition of lovely bones: his is a classically trained mind just entered its eighth decade of life, still vibrantly trying to come to terms with that which we all ultimately face, the terrifying awareness of our own inescapable date with the black void of non-existence.”