"The Secret Ministry" by Tim Dooley (Smith/Doorstop, 2001)

A winner in the 2000 Poetry Business competition. I feel I wasn't on the right wavelength for these poems - they don't feel slight, and have a variety of stances towards realism and narrative, so I expected to like them more than I did. "Détente" begins with "A fingertip at play/ inside you and my head/ cushioned on your breast, listening like a safebreaker/ for some loosening/ of the latch" which deserves a better ending than it gets.