Summary

The speaker reflects on a memory from when he was a small child: they and their father would go into the city to a place where cool yet drawn men and women frequent. The father is charming and plays pool. The speaker remembers how they saw a neighbor hit his son because of some small infraction, perhaps defending his mother from domestic violence. The father comments that sometimes a song can come from moments of conflict and upheaval. Ten years later, the speaker and their father go to a “tented city” (Line 25) where the speaker’s state of mind becomes fractured. They consider what they’ve learned, and what they see in front of them in this new environment. They become unhealthy and unbalanced through desperation and hunger; this existence, they know, will continue unbroken until they finally waste away.

Analysis

The poem begins...