Preface : leaning into a beginning -- part 1: Languaging relationships. Some substantiated and unsubstantiated claims for communication -- Relational language : a poetic sense-making -- Struggling for speech -- Relational associations -- Stephen Dunn and the poetics of living -- part 2: Listening to myself and others. Self-portrait : standing on a nail -- Reading Barthes as a lover -- Walking and writing with Laurel Richardson : a story in poems -- Three tales of understanding -- part 3: Watching men. Making my masculine body behave -- Jarheads, girly men, and the pleasures of violence -- A personal history of lust on Bourbon Street -- part 4: Holding friends and lovers. The pull and push of friendship -- Evidence of love -- Relational development and deterioration : some more of the story -- Holding Mimi -- part 5: Carrying family. Family lessons -- Stories we do and do not tell -- Remains -- Loss -- Afterword : leaning toward a way of being