In this virtuosic ensemble of poems sung in keys traditional and procedural, Christine V. Lao appraises the capacity of words to trace the gap, discern the displaced, and refract the lost. Resolute and spirited, the poems honor the poet’s duty to reckon with erasures past and present, with violence both enforced by the state and ensconced in intimate relationships, without absolving language of its role in the imposition of these harms. Training its attention on legal documents and the lexicon of law, Affidavit of Loss confronts the terrifying power of language as law to dictate the course of our lives, laying bare the persistent desire to find other ways of being in the power of language as poetry. —Conchitina Cruz ©2025