How does Anna Swir use imagery in Maternity?

Visual imagery, the most frequently used type of imagery in poetry, is a mental picture, or image, created by words. The image can be a symbolic interpretation or a metaphor providing a description. In "Maternity," Swir brings to mind the Aztec practice of human sacrifice to express the totality of a child's demands on its mother. She compares the baby to a "little puppet" and uses the images of a cracked egg and a footbridge to describe the use a child might make of a parent. At the end of the poem, Swir creates a picture of a wave of water drowning the mother to express the overwhelming feeling of humility that consumes her as she is overawed by the miracle of life and accepts the inevitability of maternal love. All these images help to establish the complexity and conflict of the relationship between mother and child.