This book of poems beautifully pairs poetry and the levels of Super Mario World to weave together memory, grief, and longing. These two poems, in particular, resonated with me:

DONUT GHOST HOUSE What is there to be afraid of? Whatever moves in the rafters / a sparrow’s nest in the chimney stuck with hay and pigeon feathers / a knock knock knock on the slate roof is hello yourself long ago / and hello an afterimage after all one image pressed to / and escaping through another. As the world of the living peers / out into the world of the dead as the isle is full of noises / as the draught catches the blue door as its keyhole’s made / of nothing / as the fireplace crackles and offers the light of the forest / the sparrow leaves its nest of eggs or maybe it doesn’t.

CHOCOLATE ISLAND 2 As Dürer sees it under the hides of carburised iron thick / as armour plating fixed in place with rivets pinned along / the seams / a polished gorget at the throat of the rhino is mostly passive. / What he got wrong hardly matters since he’d never seen / one himself / having just a poem a sketch imagination to go on / making magic of the mundane. And so the sun sets in the west / which is to be expected there over the marshes and deltas / I should like to describe to you having never been there myself.