Trying to Talk with a Man

Out in this desert we are testing bombs,

that’s why we came here.

Sometimes I feel an underground river
forcing its way between deformed cliffs
an acute angle of understanding
moving itself like a locus of the sun
into this condemned scenery.

What we’ve had to give up to get here –
whole LP collections, films we starred in
playing in the neighbourhoods, bakery windows
full of dry, chocolate-filled Jewish cookies,
the language of love-letters, of suicide notes,
afternoons on the riverbank
pretending to be children

Coming out to this desert
we meant to change the face of
driving among dull green succulents
walking at noon in the ghost town
surrounded by a silence

that sounds like the silence of the place
except that it came with us
and is familiar
and everything we were saying until now
was an effort to blot it out –
coming out here we are up against it

Out here I feel more helpless
with you than without you
You mention the danger
and list the equipment
we talk of people caring for each other
in emergencies – laceration, thirst –
but you look at me like an emergency

Your dry heat feels like power
your eyes are stars of a different magnitude
they reflect lights that spell out: EXIT
when you get up and pace the floor

talking of the danger
as if it were not ourselves
as if we were testing anything else.

Themes

• Relationship
• Breakdown
• Emotional turmoil
• Acceptance
• Violence

Poetic Techniques

• Enjambment
• Metaphor
• Sibilance
• Alliteration

Imagery

• Atomic bombs, people suffering - “testing bombs”
• Couple in a tense atmosphere - “surrounded by a silence”
• Desert, bare, barren, dry - “dry heat feels like power”
• Young couple, full of hope + optimism - “films we starred in playing in the neighbourhood”
• “love letters. of suicide notes” -

Rhyme + Structure

• Free verse
• 9 stanzas of varying length
• No rhyme pattern

Mood + Tone

• Depressing
• Reflective
• Sad

Symbolism

• the Atomic bomb presents the conversation that the couple need to have, which will have devastating consequences for both of then and their marriage
• The Desert could be viewed as a mirror image of the couples relationship, it like the desert is void and empty, there is no emotion left, the relationship is all but over
• The idea of the river flowing beneath the ground does indicate and symbolise that the poet does have some form of love for her husband, deep down

Quotes