In one of her poems, "Asylum," Xiomara expresses her desire to escape from what she describes as the asylum of a silent home life with aging parents. This is a development of a theme that she first introduced in an earlier poem, "The Last Word on Being Born to Old Parents," when she refers to the oath of silence that her father has supposedly taken. Clearly, this is not a household for small children because they cannot play, explore, and express themselves loudly.

Thank heavens, then, for music—which, as Xiomara tells us in "Asylum," provides her with a welcome escape from her stifling surroundings. The songs that she's particularly drawn to are those where people express all the things that hurt them. According to her, this is one reason why there's nothing quite like music for establishing a bridge between oneself and a total stranger.