Bilingual sestina -- Gladys poems: Audition -- Gladys singing -- Mami and Gauguin -- Grace -- Proof --Abandoned -- Making up the past: Exile -- Papi working -- Queens, 1963 -- New world -- Sound bites -- On not shoplifting Louise Bogan's The Blue Estuaries -- Beginning again -- Making up the past -- Joe poems: First love letter -- Touchstone -- Going back to sleep -- Bookmaking -- Anatomy lesson -- Monkey business -- Last love story -- Missing missives -- Staying up alone -- You remember the definitions, not the words -- Home fires -- Other side/El otro lado : I drove up in Mami's Mercedes -- Down that mountain, Mike and I hike -- Mike and I tour Boca -- I hadn't fit into any of the stories -- Mike and I pretend we're married -- Boca's mayor calls Mike over -- "We also die," says Nana -- Clairol, the youngest of Nana's girls -- El professor Juan Bautista -- Shy schoolgirl in pigtails -- Little house is closed up -- "Tell me," I ask Miguel Angel -- At his bodega, Leo sells everything -- Mike and I have our best talks -- Our brief trip to the capital -- "Who you love? Who you love?" -- Old man sleeps like the dead -- One of los muchos -- I've met everyone in Boca -- My last afternoon in Boca -- I hear Papito calling -- Estel.