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The Goose Fish

            In Howard Nemerov's poem "The Goose Fish" the main event of love making, is not the central focus of the poem, but is focused on the moment directly after the love making. The speaker describes the events that take place between the man and woman while alone on the beach. Also they describe their feelings and even what they are thinking. Each section provides the reader with a separate dramatic moment, almost like a play of five extremely short acts, and traces the drama of the two lovers.
             In the first stanza the speaker begins the poem by presenting the major action of the poem and their emotional state after their love making. The lengthy shore illuminated by the moon showed the man and woman alone together. The two "lovers" enfolded and their "shadows" became one (1-4). In these first four lines the speaker is giving the reader a mental picture of the man and a woman standing in the moon light together on the beach alone, how they should be. They should be alone after their love making because this should be something special and remembered by these lovers. Also they began to embrace or hug each other, which is seen when Howard Nemerov wrote "their shadows were as one" in line four. The normal night was blessed for them by a quick rush of "blood". That rush of blood in the previous line left them speechless and in awe and they thought about that "flood" and for a short while they judged themselves to be in paradise (5-9). In lines six and seven "the swift tide of blood that silently they took at flood" was Nemerov's way of saying through figurative language that they made love. When reading line seven through nine the reader immediately gets a sense that these two people might have been virgins or just new to each other for them to be in awe and paradise.
             In section two of "The Goose Fish" the speaker focuses in on dramatizing the lovers" reactions, which is their initial embarrassment and feelings of guilt.


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