I want to start with the tone of this poem because I feel to properly dig into it, I have to

go over it as a whole before looking at the individual pieces. To begin with I would have called

this poem mournful feeling at the beginning and through most of the middle. It starts out

speaking of the brother’s death so of course it feels like a sad poem talking about planning the

funeral despite all the things that are occurring during the wake that are more akin to a party or

carnival than a typical funeral. This is all massively turned around at the end with the big reveal

that her brother is in fact still alive and was the one hundredth guest for the party. This is a great

change in the sound of the poem for me. Where before I thought it sounded very sad and like the

speaker is incredibly stressed over the planning of the funeral and dealing with all the people, it

switches in a line to show that it’s a relief for her to think that her brother is dead and gone and

that she can finally celebrate his passing. I was expecting some kind of a twist to be sure, at the

beginning with the line “to deliver the one hundred invitations” and then later talking about the

ninety-nine people in the kitchen and again ninety-nine slices of cake it left me really wondering

who the hundredth person would be, and I did not guess that it would be the brother still alive.

This arrival really makes the meaning of the poem completely change for me, as I mentioned

before where it seemed to begin with that she is in mourning for her brother and that the party is

an exaggeration for what she thought it was like, it really is instead her fanaticizing about

celebrating her brother’s death. The overall reason for why she would be imagining this I can

take from some of the figurative language in the lines as well as the single mention of the

brothers “crystal meth tricks” that the death she imagines for him is a result of a drug overdose.

Earlier in the poem when she states that her mother “slept for ten years” as a result of blowing up

too many balloons I can imagine a couple possible interpretations of this that would continue to

follow the theme of drug use. One possibility being that her mother too followed suit of the
brother and began self-medicating either to cope with the fictional death of the brother here or

the reality where he is alive and an addict. The second possible option I could see involves the

blowing of the balloons being more of a metaphor for the life and energy the mother put into the

brother until she just can’t give anymore of herself to him, leaving her emotionally unavailable

from the rest of her life.

The second thing I noticed that was suggestive of drug use was the “two mutants” who

came to the door. If it hadn’t directly followed the previous line about crystal meth, I might have

had a harder time figuring out the hidden meaning here, but it seems plainly clear they’re meant

to be his friends of the brother, and her description of them is a striking example of how low she

thinks of them being less then human by saying the one looks “almost human”. Off of the topic

of drug use I feel too that the imagery of the many people packing themselves to the party and

coming to celebrate and sticking “their fingers in the mixing bowl” is sort of a metaphor for how

people will always come around to insert themselves into your life after the death of someone,

always wanting a piece of the action whether its emotional from a story of the persons passing,

or something with a monetary value, I feel that line in particular shows that kind of theme in the

poem.

Overall, it felt like a really powerful poem with an ending I did not see coming, and the

overall imagery of the party I think really sets a good scene for how much she wishes her brother

would be die and let her and her family finally rest.