Composed in the direct, accessible, consciousness-piercing style of which readers of Ariana Reines’ first two books are wildly enamoured, Mercury comprises a group of long poems. These interlocking works speak to the substance and essence of what is said, transmitted, transacted, “communicated” between persons. Reines proposes that substance and essence are opposites, and explores this in contexts including commercial cinema, the nation-state, currency, alchemy, and internet porn.