A conversation between mother and daughter beyond death; an elegy, a prayer, a regret

Conyer Clayton’s third poetry collection, the lake-shaped excuse, is a book about grief and so, like most grief books, it is ultimately a book about love. The voices of a long-dead mother and a still-living daughter merge and twin and separate in a series of long poems that mirror yet fall apart from one another, much like the speakers’ lives. In these poems the reader is guided through the window to the lake, into the body, away from the body, into remembering then unremembering. We see the toad in the firepit, the neighbour picking wildflowers in the front yard, their mother’s hands, rubbing their eyes to sleep. the lake-shaped excuse is a conversation beyond endings, where laughter and silence reflect on the still surface of the water.