It's about the Oiler's joyously improbable playoff run last spring. The introduction of a physics metaphor and controlled tone make it entirely in Major's voice.

Vermeer's Light: Poems 1996-2006 (Talon Books, 224 pages, $20) is chock full of Bowering's characteristic playfulness and flippancy.

That tone is maintained by a faux-antique slip cover, archival photos, and even the cover copy ("long-awaited second volume"). The amusing topical index includes six page references to "unmentionables" and 14 to "anachronism."