A Protocol For Touch was awarded the Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry and secured Constance Merritt as a truly gifted poet with a recognition richly deserved. Exile: The air is dry in the much-promised land,/And mountains whisper "this is not your home":/Still nights entice me like a knowing hand,/And strangers' hands have sometimes brushed my own./Yet milk, so sweet, turns rancid in my mouth,/And I can name no answer to desire/Since God is everywhere and I'm without./I taste the stone's sleek kiss, lie with each hour/And the dream of taking up my staff and rod,/Or no longer lingering weary at the door/My hands heavy with holy tears for God/Or some woman who always fails to come./But it's hard to leave the vigil once begun,/And waiting soon becomes much more than for.

These poems reward the first reading with immediate joy, and reward each subsequent reading with continuing provocation and power. I love this book. I'm giving it to all my friends. Any woman (or any man, for that matter) who has wrestled with the troubling intersections of individual spirit and received authority will find in these poems a wealth of comfort and wisdom, as well as shocking realization!