The "thirteen short poems" of the title are lyric and meditative verse concerning the experience of aging and the consolation of memory in a variety of contexts that evoke, among others, Goethe and Schiller, Shakespeare, Yves Bonnefoy, Antonio Machado, Federico Garcia Lorca, and Peter Taylor. The "Draft of XXX Sonnets in Prose" derives its title from Ezra Pound's Draft of XXX Cantos and enters into dialogue with a wide cast of characters, primarily Geoffrey Hill, Lyn Hejinian, and Marie Étienne, all of whom also have written "sonnets" in prose. In the background, and sometimes stepping forward, is the philosopher Stanley Rosen. The prosodic rule of the thirty units in this cycle is simple: There is no rule; there is only the number fourteen. Poetry.