Tariq Latif's third collection The Punjabi Weddings also embraces creatures like a crab 'Caught in a tidal tango' and a 'Hapless jelly-fish'. Latif is literally wonderful at sensing and illuminating the interconnectedness of things:

The insights of science stop him straying into metaphysics. In returning a dead crab to the sea he is not making a gift to 'Christ or Shiva', but offering

His poem 'Carbon' alludes to several religions in expressing ecstasy.

In 'Recycling the Self', he contemplates the scope of the molecules, minerals, and desires Afloat within his blood cells. Some of these are near abstracts made particular, traces of ozone from a thunder storm, a connection to the origin of the universe, faint isotherms from the big bang; others are more tangible, sweat beads from my father's fist, and personal, a yearning for saag gosht. He manages considerable equanimity in imagining letting go of them all in a blissful, blazing pyre so that his carbonised residuals can achieve transcendence as they

Latif is uplifting not just in the way he writes about death but for braving the much more difficult experience of being with someone who is dying. 'Fractures', 'Moon Drops' and 'Star Matter', show acute awareness of pain, but they are not harrowing. Despite feeling 'useless', 'Star Matter' ends tenderly by placing the personal in the cosmic:

As well as personal epiphanies, Latif is also strong on cultural differences and 'Variations in History'. In 'Iqbal's Halal Shop, Manchester', preconceptions are smashed with splendid dramatic irony.