SUBJECT>Re: Literally and Figuratively POSTER>Asher EMAIL> DATE>1108945266 IP_ADDRESS>dyn129-100-110-197.weldon.lib.uwo.ca PREVIOUS>83620 NEXT> 83645 IMAGE> LINKNAME> LINKURL>

Laurel--this is good. I love how the consonace links up "mole" "snow" "cold" "closer" "sole" and the various interpretations (I knew and didn’t know exactly what you were trying to say.), explored thematically in the poem. So the title was an apt one, in my opinion. The poem loses steam at the hunger bit, specifically, "A hunger you feed and feed and feed but never stave." Picking up again after that. I didn't care too much for "little machines running." Just the "little" I like how the narrator creates a conception/metaphor and then it comes to life, and the narrator (even after conceiving it) is somehow seperate from it, or apart from it..."staring down the tunnel" But it's really the narrator's tunnel, no?

Literally and Figuratively

: When, in passing, you exclaimed I’m as hungry
: as a mole
: after killing the day pedaling through snow--my
: feet
: are cold, you complained, come closer and rub
: my soles,
: warm them with your hands--I knew and didn’t
: know
: exactly what you were trying to say. I took
: your hunger,
: first, literally. Since moles like hummingbirds
: and all tiny
: creatures have super-accelerated metabolisms
: that run
: at such rapid speeds, the rodents have to eat
: constantly
: just to keep those little machines running. A
: hunger
: that never leaves. A hunger you feed and feed
: and feed
: but never stave. I also took your hunger as
: metaphor,
: the mole boring and boring holes, digging
: through hard
: soil in search of beetles and worms, those
: over-sized
: hands swimming through the dirt, the motion
: always
: forward, forward. A dark, a journeying hunger,
: and me
: standing barefoot in the wet grass peering down
: your tunnel.