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Sat 17 Jan, 2015 11:43 pm
Please help me figure out the theme and meanings of this poem. So far I think she is comparing a guy to her home decor but I am not sure what this symbolism would represent.
DÉCOR
My covetous eye casts over you,
taking you apart. I’d like a trophy of you
for every room of the house.
The bend of your cocked wrist
in the join of a rafter to the wall;
an eyebrow floated in a cut-glass bowl;
and instead of an antimacassar
draping my overstuffed chair,
a crochet netting of your veins.
Something authoritative,
asymmetrical, perhaps
a bit outré. Featuring that spiral-
shaped mystery of gravitation,
making the room attend it,
composed, aware of distances.
What better in my front hall
with its fan light, its tall
mirrors, than the immaculate
roundness of your plump heel
and toes—substantial, rococo,
a handle for my front door:
warm to the touch,
it turns easily, opens….
You can go now.
How do you know it's a woman talking about a man, and not vice versa?
@chai2,
Oh whoops I forgot to add the author who's name is Monica Youn. But she could be talking about a woman.
@alyssa010,
A Google search on the author suggests that some of her poems may allude to topics such as power relationships. Note the possession, surgical dissection and dismissal of the focal person as "object" by the writer. And the fact that she is Asian-American and may be bi-lingual suggest that she might be semantically drawing on what are "unusual" metaphors for us.
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