Ossuaries is a dense poetic narrative about Yasmine, an underground fugitive, who lives on the edges of "momentous times...full of prisons." She opens her tale on 9/11 -- unshocked by the horror that is merely the culmination of horror that has seemingly followed her throughout her adult life. The narrative voice shifts back and forth from 1st to 3rd person as in each of the 15 Ossuaries composed of triplets, Brand reveals the skeletal remains of a life lost in the dark areas of late 20th century North America. Her evocative and densely imagistic poetry alludes variously to jazz and leftist philosophers to the World War II series of paintings by Jacob Lawrence (http://whitney.org/Collection/JacobLawrence)

this genealogy she's made by hand, this good silk lace,
Engels plaited to Bird, Claudia Jones edgestitched
to Monk, Rosa Luxemburg braids Coltrane

as far as she's concerned these names reshaped time
itself though time seems somehow set itself,
in time

in so few rooms that Yasmine herself is caught
and trapped in its coarse drenched net,
a blue crab angling and articulating

sideways, these names would help
here, but
such, such did not create the world or fix time

in that bulbous concentration,
of what matters,
what appears

Yasmine knows in her hardest heart,
that truth is worked and organized by some,
and she's on the wrong side always

This is a poem that warrants rereading and rereading, and I'm sure I shall return to it often. ( )