Analysis of A Son
-- meant the door opening a draft
entering the afternoon room.
And everyone else sleeping
with their mouths open their legs.
Or if you were my father the doctor
you would be outside in the world
touching other people’s bodies opening,
holding a stick into a woman
who could not swallow for days
without it hurting. It being
the edge of her throat her voice
loose commands or the end of her mouth
the base of her tongue its root—
End of the day and a swift
pen-light, or something
mumbled from the other
side of the desk: to get dressed
because it was clear what was wrong.
Button into its hole. And a pill
into the long funnel of the body.
-- meant we had such faith in science.
meant I was partly his because I was half
his making, half his wish.
Part of the bad dream he could not wake up from
when he was young, in an old afternoon.
Sleeping the well outside his house opening
its secret mouth, deep into the world
where he knew fish were moving,
the earth shifting its feet his son
of many suns of many years
to come was making
his mind move the wind.
Scheme | X X A X B C A D X A X X X X A B X X X X X X X X X A C A D X A X |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 10110001 1000011 010110 1111011 1110110010 11111001 10101010100 100101010 1111011 01110110 0110101 101101101 0110111 1101001 11110 101010 1101111 01111111 100111001 0101101010 11111010 11110101111 110111 11011111111 111101101 10011111100 110110101 1111010 01101111 11011101 11110 11101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,028 |
Words | 205 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 32 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 26 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 6 |
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Submitted on May 01, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:01 min read
- 2 Views
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"A Son" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 8 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/64842/a-son>.
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