“Rosie and Della,” in turn, shows how we are all connected by the circle of life. In “Blood and Seed,” for instance, a man uses painterly prose to depict his enduring affection for an old lover (“Shadowed lines, thumb-traced by God, parcel out your small ribs”), interweaving images of their lovemaking with scenes from his own life, such as the birth and growth of his children. Struck with wonder and dense as poetry, the best of Peter Christopher’s short stories give form to the spiritual and emotional bonds that interconnect people.
