Reverses

Reverses - meaning Summary

Confronting the Self Again

The poem uses blunt, physical pairings to describe repeated confrontations with oneself and with the past. Short, jagged lines compress bodily images into a catalogue of collisions that suggest awkward intimacy, conflict, and unavoidable return. Its voice is direct and ironic, implying that self-knowledge comes through repeated, often comic or painful encounters rather than a single revelation. The poem emphasizes recurrence and the difficulty of personal reckoning.