Oblong 16mo. Illustrations of buttons and broken plates by Elizabeth Valero Molina accompany poetry by Álvarez Rodríguez (who here is credited as just Álvarez). As the hand-colored title page motif of teacups and buttons surrounding a cityscape, the book plots the tremors and habits of domestic life against the demands of modern, urban internationalism, conjured through references to the likes of Robert Plant and Russian author Isaac Babel's revolutionary short story, The Red Cavalry. By these two references alone, the poems offer themselves as metaphorically torn between American and Soviet influence, a reality borne out in Cuba's recent history. Bound in stiff covers incorporating denim, buttons, hand-colored paper, and broken ceramic. Stray rubs, else near fine.