Thursday, January 5, 2012

Adolescence II by Rita Dove

Although it is night, I sit in the bathroom, waiting.
Sweat prickles behind my knees, the baby-breasts are alert.
Venetian blinds slice up the moon; the tiles quiver in pale strips.

Then they come, the three seal men with eyes as round
As dinner plates and eyelashes like sharpened tines.
They bring the scent of licorice. One sits in the washbowl,

One on the bathtub edge; one leans against the door.
"Can you feel it yet?" they whisper.
I don't know what to say, again. They chuckle,

Patting their sleek bodies with their hands.
"Well, maybe next time." And they rise,
Glittering like pools of ink under moonlight,

And vanish. I clutch at the ragged holes
They leave behind, here at the edge of darkness.
Night rests like a ball of fur on my tongue.
I picked this poem of Rita Dove because it was perhaps the most baffling to me of all her poems. I cannot grasp the complete meaning of her words. I understand that she is waiting for something that is soon to come, and therefore stays up in the nights worrying or anticipating this event as she waits in her bathroom. I have absolutely no idea what the significance of the bathroom is, or the three men who situate themselves specifcally in different areas of it. The moon is also repeated in this poem, and I think it must be a metaphor for this dream or hope she has, or maybe it is simply just the bright, sparkling anticipation. I like her use of language in this poem, whether it is about the men and the moon or about the night which "rests like a ball of fur on my tongue", and this is ultimately why I chose it.

Devices:
Trochee - "bathroom" and "waiting" (1)
Tercet - each stanza in this poem is a tercet
Dactyl - Glittering (12)

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