Thinking Narrator of poem speaks in first person Lines break at unusual places Smeared has the connotation of dirtiness

Photograph being described in first stanza is blurred

Analysis -intimate, draws you in using a conversational tone -draws attention to specific words separately smeared and print. -Dirtiness could be literal but also the connotation of soiled virtue -Photographs are meant to be more trustworthy than paintings, but the blurriness suggests that we cant actually trust it. -again suggests that we cant trust what we see. We cant assume things are the way they are.

a thing that is like a branch why isnt it actually a branch? what ought to be a gentle/slope a small frame house why should it be? Why isnt it? Parentheses separates one half of the poem from the other. Parentheses are used to separate text that is either an after though or not essential to the body of the text. It lies beneath the main idea of a sentence. The photograph was taken the day after I drowned. A paradoxical statementunless shes narrating from beyond the grave or drowned is not supposed to be taken literally.

Maybe parentheses are used here to symbolize what lies beneaththe things we tend to see as unimportant that we should really be paying attention to. Given the suggestions earlier that we should not believe what we see in a picture, perhaps we should not interpret this as literal drowning. Maybe the scenery is symbolic of how we present ourselves to the world when inside we may conceal trauma. Looking versus seeing. Looking seems to imply observation while seeing, understanding. We look at people all the time, but we dont often see them.

but if you look long enough, eventually you will be able to see me Whats the difference between looking and seeing?