Apostrophe

An apostrophe is a figure of speech in which the speaker addresses someone as if the person were physically present, but is not. Throughout the poem, the speaker addresses an unnamed person in a conversational tone, calling him "you." Readers familiar with Stone's poetry know that the unnamed person is believed to be her husband; those not familiar with her poetry would not know this, but could arrive at that conclusion through deduction. The details used to describe the relationship between the speaker and the person addressed suggest an intimacy, as does the penultimate line of the first stanza, which figuratively describes the sexual relationship between the speaker and her husband. By using this form of address, Stone treats her readers as voyeurs of sort, who have privy to the writer's intense and personal emotional life. Apostrophes are often used to address abstract ideas as well; for example...