An Uncertain Sky Makes Her Wary of Stillness

LAURA VAN PROOYEN

An Uncertain Sky Makes Her Wary of Stillness

She repeats to herself:
This is history. Pay attention.
The braided rug. Her bare
feet. The braided rug
means nothing. Pay attention.
Her baby’s knees. Scuff.
Crawling. Fruit flies.
Cantaloupe rinds. Coffee
grinds. The sink. Pay
attention. The baby.
The T.V. Blaring.
The baby. The sink.
The sink. The city in ash. The city
on fire. The baby.
The baby cannot say fire.


It's amazing how short, simple sentences and just words can tell a story. According to the title of the poem, the woman is obviously going crazy and cannot focus her attention on escaping the city fire that the poem portrays through imagery. The author's use of italization shows the woman's sane thoughts whereas those sentences in plain text are what the woman's crazy mind is focusing on. With the given situation, the woman's mind is wandering towards her immediate surroundings rather than what she should do in order to leave. Everything from the coffee, to the fruit flies, and even the sink serves as a distraction. The actual descriptions of "The city in ash" and "The city on fire" show that the woman is still coherent and knows what needs to happen. However, when the author uses italics for "fire" in the last sentence, it is an indication of what she wishes the baby could say. The last sentence is almost like the woman's last cry of help, wishing her baby could say fire and someone could come save them both because of her "Wary of Stillness".