Stories, stories, and more stories. Some are family tales from long ago, some record his experiences on the road, some are rooted in Maine. Many come from conversations with the variety of folks he encounters in his daily outings in Brownsville, his hometown-counter clerk, midwife, sex worker, mailman, cancer patient. In stores, at the bus station, on the street, he listens, responds. He tells friends some of them, and many he retells as poetic slices. Whether rooted in his personal life or the lives of others, these poems take an unflinching look at being human.