Poetry. Mary Melfi's work appears unclassifiable. There are surrealist fireworks, gnostic philosophizing, black and white humor, an absurdist appreciation of the process of existence. Hers is not one voice, but rather a number of voices organized in a modern fugue: a counterpoint to its own cantus firmus. Swordfishes, swordsmen too, are equipped / to get along in life / but I'm equipped to be a dancer on the stars. / Your love is my equipment. (Sword Dances).