Paige Lewis

A Close Reading of Paige Lewis' on the train, a man snatches my b ook, reads

The following poem originally appeared in Gulf Coast 30.2

On the train, a man snatches my book, reads
the last line, and says I completely get you,

you're not that complex. He could be right--lately
all my what ifs are about breath: what if

a glass-blower inhales at the wrong
moment? What if I'm drifting on a sailboat

and the wind stops? If he'd ask me how I'm
feeling, I'd give him the long version--I feel

as if I'm on the moon listening to the air hiss
out of my spacesuit, and I can't find the rip. I'm

the vice president of panic and the president is
missing. Most nights, I calm myself by listing

animals still on the least concern end of the
extinction spectrum: aardvarks and blackbirds

are fine. Minnows thrive--though this brings
me no relief--they can swim through sludge

if they have to. I don't think I've ever written
the word doom, but nothing else fits.

Every experience seems both urgent and
unnatural--like right now, this train

is approaching the station where my lover
is waiting to take me to the orchard so we can

pay for the memory of having once, at dusk,
plucked real apples from real trees.

Paige Lewis' full length collection of poetry, Space Struck, is forthcoming from Sarabande Books in 2019. Their website is paigelewispoetry.com Follow them on Twitter @Paige_M_Lewis

This poem originally appeared in issue 30.2 of Gulf Coast. Buy issue 30.2 of Gulf Coast Magazine here: https://gulfcoastmag.org/purchase/subscribe/

Close-Reading

by Alegrarse Staff

This poem is phenomenal, an excellent example of how a poem can surprise the reader with sudden shifts and turns, a feature of this work that is only extenuated by its clever enjambments.

The poet introduces the poem by having the title and the first line be the same, which immediately reinforces the idea both the title and first line are presenting: misogyny by means of the male gaze and an unwanted, unrequested, demeaning remark. This entire image is expertly crafted: the cacophony of the word "snatched" in conjunction with its definition of being shockingly entitled; the ignorance of the man for being so presumptuous when he has only read the last line of the book the narrator is holding; and the backhanded comment being the only dialogue we receive from him.

Yet, after so much care in crafting this image, the narrator surprisingly immediately subverts it. The poet writes "They could be right," referring to the man, and then takes the opportunity that this shift presents to introduce a new topic: the narrator's anxiety. If there are two types of anxiety, anxiety of the self being the first and anxiety of others being the second, Lewis takes care to introduce the former before the latter, as it is most likely the one that readers are most familiar with. They present a series of images/scenarios, almost all of which have to do with the self, some of which are laughably terrifying: "What if I'm drifting on a sailboat // and the wind stops? If he'd ask me how I'm / feeling, I'd give him the long version--I feel // as if I'm on the moon listening to the air hiss / out of my spacesuit, and I can't find the rip. I'm // the vice president of panic and the president is / missing."

The enjambments in this portion of the poem are deliberate and careful. The pause created by the enjambment after "I'm on the moon listening to the air hiss" immediately creates a sense of dread, as the reader is first alarmed by the presence of air in space, and then even more alarmed when they find out where the air is coming from. This technique of introducing a terrifying situation, pausing with an enjambment, and then making that situation even more terrifying after the enjambment can also be seen in the previous scenario: "What if I'm drifting on a sailboat // and the wind stops?" In the first half of this sentence, there is an implication of being stranded, alone, that is only made more intense by the introduction of yet another factor in Lewis' horror: helplessness.

Helplessness is woven into all these scenarios: being unable to return home from sea, being unable to do anything about the air leaking into your body from a void, and being unable and unsure of what to do when you are left alone. It is this underlying sense of helplessness that functions as a bridge when Lewis shifts the poem yet again to talk about the rapidly worsening state of the environment. It is here, also, that Lewis presents the reader with the aforementioned "second type of anxiety." Lewis presents helplessness here as something so unavoidable that they ever so briefly shift their tone to something matter-of-fact: "I've don't think I've ever written / the word doom but nothing else fits." The narrator of the poem feels trapped, useless, and desperate all at once.

In a strange way, all of this feeling is mirrored in the very beginning of the poem too, and we understand that perhaps, on a lesser, not-as-global scale, the man made the narrator feel just as trapped, useless, and desperate as the state of the world we live in today.

The final image of the poem is the strangest and the most powerful. The poet seems to be asking: How can we love in a time like this? How can we confront our scariest anxieties? How do we deal with something so large, when we are such small humans? The narrator does not want to resolve in defeat, succumbing to the helplessness, yet they are not sure what really can be done. Can the best be made of a situation so bleak? Is memory of something beautiful as good as the continued existence of something beautiful, if that beautiful thing is to be lost? Of course not. But what else can be done?