What You Were Saying

Perhaps the purpose of a book of poems is to make our lives real to ourselves. What You Were Saying is about how we imagine ourselves into becoming who we are. It is framed by love poems because, more than anything else, love shapes us. Sometimes, it's the failure of love that creates who we become, sometimes, it's the arrival of love when we're long past the age when we expect it, and sometimes, it's love's endurance even when we know there are far fewer years ahead than behind. Franklin and his compañera Ximena do not fool themselves. They know that nothing saves us from age and dying. Still, our conversation means everything: "Our words, even if cut off / Mid-sentence, will hang there in our ears, more intensely / Than any declaration of love." What You Were Saying embodies this conversation and invites the reader to participate in it. The poems travel to Spain, Italy, Mexico, Colombia, and even the prisons in Florida where the poet has taught for ten years. In each of these places, there are losses and memories, but most of all, gratitude for the conversation that continues and makes our lives worthwhile.