In the beginning of the poem in (lines 1-3), Ostriker says “When the child begins to suffer, the mother finds in her mouth those burning coals, You can neither spit out nor swallow”.

Ostriker is exhibiting certain words at the end of each line to stick in your mind and show that these specific words symbolize her daughter’s pain. Words such as mother at the end of the first line, meaning

the origin or source of something, a human being. A female who mothers a child, whether it be biological or adopted, has a certain kind of love for that child compared to anyone or anything else. She is feeling the suffering that her offspring is feeling, maybe not exactly, but she can imagine. Another word at the end of the second line is coals, she wants the reader to imagine the pain of hot coals inside your mouth. Ostriker is comparing the extreme pain of hot coals burning in the mouth to the loss of her daughter’s first love. Those burning coals in her mother’s mouth, symbolize a painful agony that she is going through because she feels for her daughter. The reason why she can’t spit out the pain and if swallowed, perhaps would be even more painful. Burns more than often cause welts and scars that last forever.

The next paragraph including (lines 4-6) is telling you about a religion that Buddhist’s believe called Zen. It teaches about the period of enlightenment, supposedly making things in life more clear afterwards. Ostriker adds this into her poem to reveal that the mother character has things made more clear to her towards the end of this poem. The coals eventually dissolve in her mouth and are cool which is sort of saying that the pain eventually diminishes, maybe not completely, but the majority of it decreases. As a result, there is relief.

The poem ends stating that the mother wishes it was that easy to take the pain away from her daughter. She compares taking away her daughter’s hurting to peeling dropclothes off of a clay figure in order to display it’s beauty and innocence. The author is saying under

Some topics in this essay:
Alicia Ostriker, lost boyfriend, imagine pain, mother daughter, hyacinth flower, pain result loss, intense emotional pain, reader imagine pain, emotional pain result, result loss love, loss love, burning coals, result loss, daughter’s pain, pain words, reader imagine,