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Transcript

Thoughts:

"The doctors are enamel"- What are the qualities of enamel? Scratchable- How does she scratch at the doctors? Instead, the doctors scratch at her.

"Tiles are also made of enamel." Does she mean that the room is tiled with doctors?

"Some pendulum soul, going the way men go and leave you full of child." Pendulum could be a reference to the theme of time i.e. the repeated reference to "long" or it can be a reference to the fickleness of men and how they come and go.

"But our case history is blank. All I did was let you grow. Now here we are for all the ward to see."

Case history seems to be a reference to her history of being institutionalized.

All I did was let you grow is an interesting contrast to her poem The Abortion.

"Now here we are for all the ward to see" suggests being stigmatized and put on display.

"How the air is just so" seems to be a cynical comment on life.

Poetic Devices: Metaphor. Child as a knuckle. Thoughts: Current... like a storm current or a river current. Water and wind can be delicate, but they can also be violent and harsh. The child, although small holds great power over her mother. Air and water (especially rivers) are continuous, so this comparison shows that the child's life will continue long beyond this instance.

Poetic notations: This is also packed with metaphor. Child as snail. Lips as animals. Thus far, the poem is following an abab rhyme scheme: long/strong, bed/fed. Here the speaker shows a motherly connection.

The child and the mother fit together perfectly, in a perfect mother child bond. The child is part and parcel of the mother, for she comes from the mother's body... but soon the child will be nothing more than a stranger and their relationship will be severed. The sentimentality of these lines show remorse and sadness on the part of the speaker. The reference to the institution bed perhaps refers to the coldness and cruelty that Anne Sexton had encountered in her history with institutions and hospitals. She has come to know these as cold, unpitying, unfair places and she has accepted this unfairness as the norm. Poetic notations: Abab rhymes continues. Metaphor- like a cup. Repetition of the word long long/strong throng/belong (slant rhyme) Belong/long Perhaps the repetition of long suggests that this is a long torturous process for the mother?

These lines also show the deep loving bond between mother and child. "Bone at my bone" shows that the child is part and parcel of the mother. The rhyme of skin/in also suggests this as well. The flood of faces also speaks to Anne's experience with institutions.

"Eyes lifting tents"- awakening to life and emerging into a wilderness.

"They are blue stones."- Stones recalls the possible river reference. The river kicks stones to life and moves them along. In doing so, the baby's eyes outgrow their moss. They are no longer still. They are no longer gathering moss.

The mother refers to herself as a shelter of lies. She holds lies within herself, however, she also shelters and protects her baby. Is she calling the baby a lie as well? The baby IS the product of a lie.

"Your old man's face disarms"

Does the baby have a face like an old man or does the baby's face resemble it's father's i.e. it's old man's?

"Disarms"- the literal meaning... but also dis-arms... the baby leaves it's mother's arms.

"And now that's that." Resignation, feigned indifference, hopeless defeat.

"There is nothing more I can say or lose." The speaker has already lost everything. She's lost her dignity and her child.

"I tighten to refuse your owling eyes"- wide and unblinking.

"I touch your cheeks like flowers." - delicate, fragile, lovely, temporary

"You bruise against me"- does the child bruise or does the child create a bruise on the mother? Perhaps both.

A shore rocking off a body of water is unnatural. Typically, the water rocks off the shore. The mother is forced to perform an unnatural act. She rocks like an earthquake... violent and shattering. Her world as she had known it for the past 6 days is shattered. She convinces herself, however, that she is able to let go unscathed and unattached.

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