01-25-2015, 07:09 PM
(12-13-2014, 02:04 AM)71degrees Wrote: After a man beats a woman,
he cannot see his own shame
hidden within his closed fist. I would scrap this line completely, if I were you. It doesn't seem to add anything but an image that, well, doesn't seem to add anything, not an idea nor an emotional effect.
When he enters the house,
predetermined, front door
creaking like his own mother’s ....front door? This break in the line doesn't add anything for me.
faint and past pleading voice, I would rather you shorten the four lines about the man entering the house into a good three or two, as per the jarring I break I noted in the last house. Maybe remove predetermined? It again doesn't seem to add anything to the character of the man. And maybe shorten the description of the mother's voice to just a few words, or just a little simile.
he listens to their bedsprings’ jangle The word "their" is also kind of jarring for me here, since I can't really tell who "they" are here....Well, I can, but it still took me a good moment to find it out.
and feels compelled to drag This would be stronger if the man actually dragged the woman, rather than just felt compelled to do so.
the woman, pulling her before the deep
witness of a mirror where he sees
his father’s face, a pig’s head, This would be clearer if we knew what his father's head was doing, or where exactly his father's head appeared (over his face, over the lady's face, over the whole of the mirror...)
confessing like Thomas what he can’t I don't get the reference to Thomas the doubter here. Thomas doubted that something truly miraculous had happened, and got convinced that it really did happen, if I remember the Bible correctly. He didn't really deny anything that was worth denying, then accepted it otherwise as the truth. That narrative flow, though it somewhat mirrors the poem's own tale, is still too joyful and far off to be the proper reference here, I think.
believe he's done, not even
after his fingers probe
his own baffling wounds.

