"A girl longs for her mother's attention. But Mummy is always busy helping everyone else and their children! Day by day, the narrator recalls what it was like growing up with her mother, who was a nanny, as well as a friend, baker, maker, teacher, cleaner and more. As the youngest in her family, the girl stayed home and helped amuse the children her mother looked after. She went along on trips to the Caribbean greengrocer in their Brooklyn neighborhood,...

Tommy is a real-life 40-year-old virgin. He also still lives with his traditional Christian Korean parents under a curfew. He's never been on a date, kissed a girl, or cooked a meal, nor does he own a personal bank account. He's been suppressed and pampered his whole life, leaving him with almost no adult skills. For years, Tommy pleads with his unlikely best friend Nem, a 6'9 former pro basketball player turned comedian to "help him with the ladies"....

Poems rising from and returning to Bukowski's personal experiences reflect people, objects, places, and events of the external world, and reflects on them, on their way out and back.