levelheaded: from outside voices, please

 

The plot of this week’s poem by Valerie Hsiung is easy to grasp. That said, this isn’t just a poem about a baby eating cotton candy then waving goodbye to her mom’s friend. Hsiung’s diction opens the poem to attention-worthy metaphorical interpretations.

 

The word “dissolves” from line two, for example, seems especially significant. It’s used to describe the child’s facial expression changing from one of displeasure or surprise to one of pleasure. It also harkens back to the image of cotton candy dissolving on the tongue. Outside the context of lines one and three though—that is, looking at the word “dissolves” as it functions in line two as a unit—Hsiung seems to be commenting on human perception, how, once we “process what [something] is,” whatever “twist” has been put on said thing, be it by an external or internal force, that perception lacks permanence. It “dissolves.” The world is always changing.

 

Our place in the world is ever-changing too. Hsiung seems to extend this metaphor as she introduces “two women, old friends from / some point before.” The relationship highlighted here is one that has changed. Not coincidentally, the form of the poem also changes at this moment, going from left-justified double-spaced lines to a pair of indented single-spaced lines.

 

Dissolving cotton candy leads to a dissolving expression leads to a dissolving relationship leads to dissolving sunlight by line six: “Yeah… We should get going. Getting dark.” When the word “Yeah” comes back a line later, it’s a different “Yeah” that behaves differently. Onto the bus and guess what happens—”it is moving.” Look out you rock ’n rollers.

 

As the poem closes, the tender image of a baby waving goodbye takes on a melancholy tone. Loss has occurred. Not just for baby who no longer has that pre-sweet tooth innocence, but also for two friends who are perhaps no longer as close as they once were. Even more important than any acknowledgement that loss has occurred, however, is the idea that it is constantly occurring. Change happens too. Wave after wave, a goodbye is not a bye is not a bye.

 

 

– The Editors