“I wonder if there is / a map of us,” writes Sergio D. Lara. If such a map exists, where would it lead us? Perhaps into the interior of our bodies. Perhaps, on the contrary, far away, to the constellations. Perhaps both destinations somehow coincide, and the universe is also the body, and vice versa. In any case, reading Así las cosas is to surrender to the ebb and flow of pain, which, when it finally seems to have left, returns with greater force and “brings with it the shriek that names it.” That pain, the pain of our skin and our organs, is at the same time the pain of the city, the country, the world in which we live. The map, if it exists, leads us to fullness, but also to emptiness; to splendor, but also to misery: “I am no stronger or better / than the worst of myself.” The map, if we know how to read it, is this book.