From movie making to medical misadventures, meditations on widowhood to feminist protestations, Expectation Days is a dazzling portrayal of instances in Sandra McPherson's life. Her autobiographical collection uses peculiar and exact language to reflect on a wide range of activities that include grouse hunting, going through airport security after 9/11, and climbing a coastal cliff. From being an unintended child to ceremonializing a lifetime "served," McPherson speaks in both clear and distressing voices from the state of speechless fear that is bereavement.

Will the little figures ever reach the monument?

A doctor orders me to be on watch.

Will the mist pass over their cheeks

and clear the strollers' eyes?

If so, I'll see it. I'm on watch.

I train my eyes on paintings

to see if there is any change.

—from "On Suicide Watch"

| Cover Title Copyright Contents I Grouse Beach Journal, May: Dune Census "Through Lace Curtains, Ravens" (Pasternak) Gospel Disinclined I Was Young and Working by the Ship Locks Officer and Gentleman and a Small Heroic Order Precipice, Rush, Sheath Two Young Trees Bending in Strong Wind On Being Transparent: Cedar Rapids Airport Lucid Dreaming: Oxycodone II Containers Living with an Urn Bereavement: Leaving the Radio on All Night for Company Bereavement: 1919 Pre-Op Room Muses for Panic Suicidology Mourning, Ninth Month Post-Op, Medical Humanities Fox: A Memory of My Husband III Cabawaguni Scarecrow, Dang Region, Nepal Do-It-Yourselfer's Ghazal Expectation Days Blossom River Drive Children of the Village Schoolchildren, 2000 and 1848 The Mexican Acrobat IV Virtue Study: "It was his first" Virtue Study: Pastoral Virtue Study: Samma Vaca Virtue Study: Teachings Virtue Study: Happy Hour Virtue Study: Blues Society V Chicory at Night Diary: Day of Rest To a Book of Needles, 1918 The Bat by Porch Light Hibakusha Poem for a Late Birthday How to Read an Aerial Map On Suicide Watch Autumn on a Small Tree Surfaces, Central Valley, 109° Back cover |

"This book is a knockout. Sandra McPherson is fully aware of art's limited power to console, and the stunning poems of her new collection admit not a whiff of affection or artificial catharsis."—Poetry

"In the completeness of her description—tender, shocking, hilarious—McPherson's Expectation Days leaves the stuffy woolens of inhibition locked behind closed doors, preferring to dance outdoors in a gauzy linen dress, letting the sun trace her silhouette, in all its beauty and misery."—Sacramento News & Review
"McPherson . . . stands in a sort of magic circle and conjures up a world I am glad to be part of. . . . A poet among us who deserves more readers, more homage, more celebration."—Field
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Sandra McPherson is a professor of English at the University of California, Davis, and the author of numerous poetry collections, including A Visit to Civilization.