The last few years have been tough for Jeffrey Round. The author, best known for the novel A Cage of Bones and the Dan Sharp mystery series, lost eight people in his life, including his  mother and fellow writer R M Vaughan.

Writers deal with grief in one particular way - they  write about it. In this case, Round has published a new collection of poems entitled Threads. 

It would be a mistake to think that the poems are only about death and loss, however. For instance, I succumbed to a poem called “Nights of Pleasure (For Jon)”, that states, 
Nights of pleasure come 
far fewer now 
that I am old, amigo 
But your cock inside me is duro, 
a raging stallion 
that makes me feel secure 
and strong 
And when you cum 
my body fills with stars 
Has there ever been a more eloquent description of bottoming? Later, there is an entire section  of poems about James Dean, featuring this marvellous passage: 
I am a sad scout 
a hustler of lost dreams 
exhuming you 
as you flicker and fade 
before my eyes 
trickling after you 
to Eden or Marfa 

Then comes the title poem, a haunting description of an incident in which a young Round  witnessed a gay bashing, only to find out much later, in a letter published in Xtra! by a friend of  the victim, that he had died of his wounds. At the time of the incident, Round was with a friend,  a photographer named Ralph, and later discovered that Ralph too had died, of AIDS. As he  stares at a photo that Ralph took of him, he remembers the gay bashing and the letter and Ralph taking the photo: 
As I pulled on the string of memory, 
little by little I remembered: 
that night outside Komrad’s, 
the boy being kicked to death, 
and Ralph taking my photo. 
All the threads of my life stitched together, 
and me pulling and pulling on them, 
the fabric of my being shredding 
and coming undone.