Boston, Massachusetts

Many of the poems throughout the collection are set in or make allusions to Boston, Massachusetts. The reader can thus infer that the author, and therefore the speaker, has spent an extended period of time in this place. In "Elegy: Boston," for example, the speaker stands on the Harvard Bridge meditating on an old lover (29). In “Folks Are Right, My Nose Was Wide Open,” the speaker waits outside a Boston café for his friend, thinking about his poetry. These are just two examples of such moments. Other references to the city act as the poetic soil for the speaker's ongoing meditations about loss and love.

New York, New York

New York, New York similarly recurs throughout the entirety of the collection. While in New York, the speaker will remark upon its noise and energy. In a poem like "August," the speaker is "waiting for the 4 at Fulton...