Some people are so broken they can only cut us.

With poetic dexterity, Aurealis Award finalist Kathryn Gossow interweaves eight short stories of longing and alienation featuring outcasts and the misunderstood. From a homeless storyteller to a gardening soothsayer, to a copy editor who owns a pair of stubborn chickens, readers will come face to face with the humanity of people easily judged by a rigid society.

At the heart of these stories is the Dark Poet, a charismatic and broken man leaving a trail of debris as he drifts in and out of people's lives.