In Sawako Nakayasu’s newest collection of poems there are balconies and there is hockey, there is heat (the word not the substance), and there is love and at times all four meet up. It is gratifying to have hockey (pucks, zamboni’s and all) appear in poetry –sports rarely seem to make entrance in to current poetic fields. Nakayasu starts this collection, which she subtitles Love Poems, with a series of balcony poems, forcing readers to think deeply about just what a balcony is/can/might be: a slit of outside-ness; an urban place of escape. Considering balconies my mind always recalls this set of buildings in this certain part of Denver, likely erected in the 60s or 70s that seem to pay tribute to the architectural achievements of communist-block Russia. The balconies on these buildings make substantial contributions to how uninviting they are. Each building’s balconies are ugly in their own private way, but all reinforce a feeling of being closed in. This is, in effect, quite an integral part of balconies, and also, when compared to the feeling of other spectator sports, of hockey. Hurry Home Honey continually moves toward, inspects and inhabits these spaces that people use to get away from one another while remaining wholly surrounded. The balcony (as the hockey rink) is just that –the space used to escape to an “outside” without going anywhere at all. This feeling of enclosure runs throughout Nakayasu’s collection.