What We Do with Our Hands chronicles a five-week period in the speaker's life during which she buries her mother, finds herself unexpectedly headed for divorce following a long marriage, and is kicked out of her home. The poems reflect a life racing out of control in real time, and the hard-fought journey to regain some sense of order. Many of the poems in this collection are in response to, or in conversation with suffering, and coming to terms with shame, anxiety, denial-and the initial failure to live the life the speaker wanted. What We Do with Our Hands is a tangible place where suffering can coexist with the almost unendurable beauty that is life.