A spiritual thread runs through these poems of loss.Yes and No is a book about looking back and looking forward. Many of the poems deal with the loss of friends and relatives whose spirits remain in the poet&;s life in memory and even apparition. As the title connotes, the collection is about affirmation and negation: there are love poems and poems of the devastating loss of love and poems of passion and the dwindling of it. A spiritual thread runs through the book as well, as seen in the opening poem, &;Prayer at the Masked Ball,&; and in the question asked in the title poem: &;are we connected to the infinite, or not?&;