Kerri Huffman’s debut collection, juniper, works like an X-Ray machine held up to the poet’s heart. With nimble wit and an edgy, playful voice, Huffman demonstrates the fragility of our deepest connections. Through diary-like reflections—in gardens, kitchens, city parks, nightclubs, art galleries, in various cities—the book charts the final months in the arc of a thorny, transformational, corrosive relationship. Juniper is concerned with the stakes of friendship, the cost of addiction, and the savagery lurking at the edges of polite society. Huffman’s haunting verse ultimately reveals how memory clings to desire in a world of inevitable loss.