Two Strangers Breakfast
Two Strangers Breakfast - meaning Summary
Forced Intimacy by Law
The poem presents a terse, ironic meditation on imposed connection. Addressing "George," the speaker cites an abstract law
that binds them together despite vast, hostile distances and barriers. Images of snowstorms and furnaces emphasize separation and hardship, yet the law compels them to share an ordinary act—breakfast—after nights of wandering. The poem registers loneliness, duty, and the uneasy intimacy of enforced companionship.
THE LAW says you and I belong to each other, George. The law says you are mine and I am yours, George. And there are a million miles of white snowstorms, a million furnaces of hell, Between the chair where you sit and the chair where I sit. The law says two strangers shall eat breakfast together after nights on the horn of an Arctic moon.
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