In this emotional follow-up to The Zoo Father, a daughter is haunted by her mentally ill mother until a series of remarkable transformations help her to conquer painful childhood memories. Over the course of the collection, the feared mother becomes a rattlesnake, an Aztec goddess, a Tibetan singing bowl, a stalagmite, a praying mantis, and then a ghost orchid, yet in the central poem the daughter becomes a cosmic stag and escapes her mother-huntress.