There are those inhabitants of islands who say they "'fraid sea", meaning they have an abiding respect for the restless ocean and for whatever lies unseen past the horizon. Sea have 'no back door' is the phrase they use to indicate the idea of no return, of being swallowed up in the vastness of a world outside the shore that is a natural boundary. These poems chart the journeys metaphorical and literal of those who stay, and those who go, and the dilemma of the immigrant soul trying to live in two places at once.