bothering poem

A poem that bothers me is “Highway 12, just east of Paradise, Idaho” written by Robert Wrigley. What bothers me is the description of how a doe was killed. It breaks my heart to know that the animal was killed and reading how her tongue was hanging out and her eyes were vacant. The poem describes what happen to the doe, the doe “skated many yards… fell slowly”. The narrator says “her neck caught a sign post that spun her across both lanes and out of sight”. I don’t understand the reason to write a poem about a doe’s death on highway 12 just east of paradise, Idaho. Maybe, the narrator was scared that he hit the doe. The narrator caused an innocent doe to lose its life. I can only imagine the narrator felt remorse and they may be why he wrote the poem. At the end of the poem, after the narrator tells about the deer hitting the sign post and spinning across the lanes and out of sight he says “For which, I admit, I was grateful, the road there being dark, narrow, and shoulderless”. Wondering why he was grateful for this, the conclusion that he was grateful the doe landed on the side of the road instead of in the middle of the road where someone could hit it again. He was grateful that it was dark so that way when someone drives by the doe is out of sight so they wouldn’t see the dead animal. He was grateful the road did not have a shoulder because without a shoulder there is not a place for a car to stop, if a car pulled over and stopped they could accidently find the dead doe and what a horrible discovery that would be. 

Comparison of two poems

       The poems “Variations on the Word Sleep” by Margaret Atwood and “Monorhyme for the Shower” by Dick Davis are structured around someone they love. The two poems share similarities and differences.

       The author, Dick Davis, of “Monorhyme for the Shower” is sitting back admiring a woman in the shower. This is concluded from the description of her lifting her arms to soap her hair (line 1). As the author watches the woman, he realized how quick time passed since he first loved her. He says “the movement of that buoyant pair [her breasts] is like a spell to make me swear twenty-odd years have turned to air” (lines3-5). Now he flashes back to when they are young and he wouldn’t dare approach her or to ask her out (line7-8). Years passed, they have been together and had children. He still has a burning love for her and at the end of the poem she turns to him after her shower and smiles that he is there. The author is amazed that the girl he loved when he was young, the girl he was afraid to confess his love to, is his wife of twenty plus years and she loves him.

       In the poem “Variations of the Word Sleep”, by Margaret Atwood, the narrator expressed how they would like to watch “you”, someone they love, sleep. They say it may not happen (line 2). This could mean that they may never be together. The narrator loves the sleeper but they do not love her. The narrator wants to enter the sleeper’s dreams. The narrator wants to experience the beauty in the dream and wants to be able to protect the sleeper from their fear. The narrator wants to be unnoticed but necessary, as necessary as air is to breath.

       The narrator in both poems is admiring a loved one and thinking about them. The difference between the two is that in “Monorhyme for the Shower” the narrator has their love, but in “Variations of the Word Sleep” the narrator wants the other person’s love.