Illustrates the cacophony of Bernardo Wade’s native New Orleans—a rosary strung with Mardi Gras beads, a Sunday football game, Nigel Hall covering Frankie Beverly in Lafayette Square. As Wade maps out the parts he played in his life’s most formative moments, he can’t help but “retune the heart / strings of hard men,” teaching us how to become more human. Here, he manages to land, not a crushing blow, but a love tap—the softest way to knuckle another’s cheek.