A poem can remove the thorn from any lion's paw - but by the same token a poet may have to ask the lion to tend his wound. Penelope Shuttle's new collection, Sandgrain and Hourglass, charts a variety of transactions between poet-self and wound, between wound and beast. A major preoccupation is her continuing experience of loss, particularly the way time modulates and redefines grief. Her engagement with the world's manifold possibilities is also strongly present in Sandgrain and Hourglass-a machine for grading kisses, Edward Thomas translated into Japanese, a stolen reindeer, Faust, Francis Bacon's mirror, and bedtime-the possibilities are endless.