Storehouses of the Snow

n his delightfully audacious fourth book, Philip Memmer addresses a deity who is "always ceasing / to be, and then ceasing / to cease to be." In Psalms that fuse contemporary language and wit with scriptural gesture, Memmer knits a sweater for God and presents Him with new "by-laws" for their unsatisfactory relationship; in recast biblical stories and invented parables, he foregrounds God's absence and sanctioned destructions. But the poet's disappointment with the one he calls Father is tempered by wistfulness and wisdom; even before the book's surprising final turn, he offers this: "you must / find the kingdom empty, / then make it yours.