In a country where violence and the threat of violence is a constant weather for queer Black people where can the spirit rest With lush language the meditative poems in the Isabella Gardner Awardwinning Tenderness examine the fraught nature of intimacy in a nation poisoned by antiBlackness and homophobia. From the bedroom to the dance floor from the natural world to The Frick from the Midwest to Florida to Mexico City the poems range across interior and exterior landscapes. They look to movies fine art childhood memory history and mental health with melancholy anger and playfulness. Even amidst sorrow and pain Tenderness uplifts communal spaces as sites of resistance and healing wonders at the restorative powers of art and erotic love and celebrates the capaciousness of friendship.