There are bewildering new experiences and new sensations. That disorientation doesn’t just help the images stick in your mind, it’s also thematically appropriate. Why are the seal-men’s bodies “sleek”? Why are they seal-like in the first place? Why licorice? What does a ball of fur on the tongue feel like anyway? Everyone will probably have at least one that grabs their attention and maybe disorients them a little. The first thing that jumps out at you about the poem is probably the vivid sensory images, right? We actually have more or less all five senses here: sight (“glittering like pools of ink” and many others), sound (the seal men “chuckle” and “whisper”), smell (“the scent of licorice”), taste (“a ball of fur on my tongue”), and touch (“sweat prickles behind my knees”). Night rests like a ball of fur on my tongue. They leave behind, here at the edge of darkness. Glittering like pools of ink under moonlight, Patting their sleek bodies with their hands. One on the bathtub edge one leans against the door. Then they come, the three seal men with eyes as roundĪs dinner plates and eyelashes like sharpened tines. Venetian blinds slice up the moon the tiles quiver in pale strips. Sweat prickles behind my knees, the baby-breasts are alert. Although it is night, I sit in the bathroom, waiting.

Dont quit poem analysis