Conversation

We smile at each other -

and I lean back against the wicker couch.  

How does it feel to be dead? I say.

You touch my knees with your blue fingers.  

And when you open your mouth,

a ball of yellow light falls to the floor  

and burns a hole through it.

Don’t tell me, I say. I don't want to hear.  

Did you ever, you start,

wear a certain kind of silk dress

and just by accident,

so inconsequential you barely notice it,  

your fingers graze that dress

and you hear the sound of a knife cutting paper,  

you see it too
and you realize how that image

is simply the extension of another image,  

that your own life

is a chain of words

that one day will snap.

Words, you say, young girls in a circle, holding hands,  

and beginning to rise heavenward

in their confirmation dresses,

like white helium balloons,

the wreaths of flowers on their heads spinning,

and above all that,

that’s where I’m floating,  

and that’s what it’s like

only ten times clearer,

ten times more horrible.  

Could anyone alive survive it?

Ai

Poem analysis  

In this poem, the writer uses various metaphors to further emphasize on the message she is trying to bring across. for example, in "wear a certain kind of silk dress and just by accident,

so inconsequential you barely notice it", the dress is a metaphor for someone becoming matured and death slowly approaching and taking over that person. It suggests that slow but inevitable maturity that one acquires over time. Like how a dress is donned onto a person, the person dons on maturity. In "image is simply an extentions of another image", the image refers to the person realizing that he/she has matured and the maturity is the extension of becoming closer to death.  The sentence "realizing ur life is a chain of words that will one day snap" refers to fact that she'll die one day and that death is inevitable being made known to the poet.

Also, the sentences "How does it feel to be dead? I say." and "Don’t tell me, I say. I don't want to hear." are contradictory to each other as the poet on one hand is asking for an answer but on the other hand, refuses to hear it. The two conflicting sentences represents and reflects the poet's own struggle with coming to terms that death is inevitable and that she will have to face it one day. The irony in the two sentences is also used to bring out the emphasis on the author's struggle with herself about coming to terms with the negativeness and horrible truth of death.

Ai, the poet.

(click here for bio and history background of Ai)