Slave Coffle
Slave Coffle - meaning Summary
Loss of Home and Self
The poem compresses a moment of abrupt dispossession. It contrasts a near, attainable sense of home and freedom with a sudden collapse into permanent loss and darkness. Spatial images—a riverbed and high road—become metaphors for escape; later ground and night become suffocating confinement. The final, dawning realization is that identity and future have been taken. The tone is spare, urgent, and elegiac about stolen life and belonging.
Read Complete AnalysesJust Beyond my reaching, an itch away from fingers, was the river bed and the high road home. Now Beneath my walking, solid down to China, all the earth is horror and the dark night long. Then Before the dawning, bright as grinning demons, came the fearful knowledge that my life was gone.
Feel free to be first to leave comment.