New Rule | Themes

New Rule Themes

Relationships

Although it is not totally clear until more than halfway through the poem, the poet is coming to terms with a relationship that has ended badly. Her boyfriend or husband has left her "in our fifth year," but it is clear that she still has feelings for him, since she refers to him as "my true love." One assumes that, since the female poet refers to a "night of hooks," she is painfully alone. She is also re- living the death of her relationship, as the dying electric razor, or "man blade" signifies. The poem becomes a process by which the poet confronts her feelings about her lost love and her loneliness: "Do you fear the same things as / I fear?"; works through these emotions—the "peg of tears" at the end of the poem depicts the poet's final tears shed for her lost love; and moves on with her...
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