Whether by way of ancient alphabets, modern art, or hidden chemistry, the poems in Karen Donovan’s unique second collection of poetry look within and without at our involuntary and intended expressions, signs, and gestures, which combine, in this unique poet’s work, to make us human. Published more than fifteen years after the publication of her Juniper Prize-winning first book, Fugitive Red, the poems in Karen Donovan’s second collection continue to mine the language and systems of science and social science as a way of portraying our lineage of experience. Whether through the symbols of an ancient Irish alphabet or the “lost gospel of ribosome,” Donovan traces the way our inner and outer expressions and gestures combine to form our humanness.