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 way the mother refers to her child a numerous amount of times says that maybe her daughter is young, but yet again, maybe she considers her young because she doesn't want to let go. She says child in the first line (line 1) while introducing the poem, in (line 7) to demonstrate the child lost her boyfriend, and finally in (line 16) towards the end of the poem, while stating that she wishes she can easily wash the grief off of her child's face. By using this simple but meaningful word constantly throughout the poem is symbolic because it is showing that in some way the mother thinks of her daughter as innocent and inexperienced.
(Line 7) opens up with " The child's lost boyfriend permeates the home, like a hyacinth perfume, nothing can escape it, it is too much,". Her lost boyfriend is not exactly saying nowhere to be found, but more like gone forever. The hyacinth flower is a spiked, bell-shaped flower with a strong aroma. The poet writes that the boyfriend is still amongst them invisibly in the home. So her boyfriend is not physically present, but his presence is somehow still in the home , in one way or another. "Nothing can escape it, it is too much" (line 9) means his past presence illuminated the home. Ostriker chose the hyacinth flower, not just a tulip or lily, because the characteristics of the flower have significance.
