For this author family continues to be a wellspring of inspiration and learning. This, his third book of poetry, is a genealogy of the heart, exploring how his family's emotional legacy has shaped, and continues shaping, his perspectives. The collection is presented in three movements, each one chronicling his understanding of a particular facet of life from childhood into adulthood. As a child born into the milieu of his Cuban exiled familia, the first movement delves into early questions of cultural identity and their evolution into his unrelenting sense of displacement and quest for the elusive meaning of home. The second begins with poems peering back into family again, examining the blurred lines of gender, the frailty of his father-son relationship, and the intersection of his cultural and sexual identities as a Cuban-American gay man living in rural Maine. In the last movement, poems focused on his mother's life shaped by exile, his father's death, and the passing of a generation of relatives, all provide lessons about his own impermanence in the world and the permanence of loss. As a whole this collection of poetry is looking for the beauty of that which we cannot hold onto, be it country, family, or love.

Looking for the Gulf Motel -- The name I wanted: Betting on America -- Tía Margarita Johnson's house in Hollywood -- Cousin Consuelo, on piano -- Taking my cousin's photo at the Statue of Liberty -- Of consequence, inconsequently -- The island within -- Poem between Havana and Varadero -- Habla Cuba speaking: 5:00 AM in Cuba -- Practice problem -- El Florida room -- Sitting on my mother's porch in Westchester, Florida -- Playing house with Pepín -- Afternoons as Endora -- Queer theory: according to my grandmother -- Abuelo in a Western -- The port pilot -- My brother on Mt. Barker -- Papá at the kitchen table -- My father, my hands -- Love as if love -- Maybe -- Cheers to Hyakutake -- Thicker than country -- Killing Mark -- Love poem according to quantum theory -- Birthday portrait -- Mamá with Indians: 1973, 2007 -- Venus in Miami Beach -- Cooking with Mamá in Maine -- House of the Virgin Mary -- Mi rosa y mi sal -- Questioning my cousin Elena -- Remembering what Tía Noelia can't -- Unspoken elegy for Tía Cucha -- Bones, teeth -- Burning in the rain -- Place of mind -- Some days the sea -- Since unfinished.