This book of poetry explores the complex and contradictory emotions of love and abuse, drawing on biblical and scientific imagery. The poems use the stories of creation, the fall, and the affair between David and Bathsheba as metaphors for the stages of a relationship that is both passionate and destructive. The poems also employ the concepts of vivisection and drowning to convey the pain and suffocation that the speaker feels as a result of the abuse. The book is a poetic journey from innocence to sin, from hope to despair, and from life to death.