Book excerpt: From its shimmering emergence in infatuation and betrayal to the looming threat of irrevocable loss, Ben Sharafski's debut collection Returning to Carthage explores the myriad traces love leaves upon our psyches and our lives. Through perspectives that span generations and cross continents - from WWII Manchuria's impact on a contemporary Sydney wedding to the thrill of an illicit tryst in Vientiane - Sharafski delicately examines the many modes of love and how it makes and unmakes us in ways large and small. "Excellent! Desperately sad" - Les Murray (on 'Two Lives, Intersected')