"Siedlarz's debut collection of poems about her brother's life as a soldier in Afghanistan shimmers like the heat over desert sand where civilians and soldiers alike are caught and often destroyed by powers that cannot be controlled. Set in a terrain "where nothing continues to bloom," poems from the brother's voice give a graphic picture of the gritty day-to-day life of both American and Afghani soldiers fighting an unending war. However, the poems reveal that in this unforgiving land where even "poppies smack their red faces in the breeze," the human spirit refuses to let laughter and celebration get swallowed." -Vivian Shipley, author of When There Is No Shore, winner Connecticut Book Award for Poetry