The stag

The stag symbolizes the speaker’s ex-husband, embarking on a post-conjugal adventure defined by mobility and freedom. However, the collection emphasizes the ambiguity of loss and blame, as the speaker experiences empathy for the stag creature in the titular “Stag’s Leap” (16). Further, the origin of the wine in the speaker’s hometown complicates the symbol as alluding solely to the husband’s freedom, and it expands to allude to the speaker’s own sense of buoyancy and levity later in the collection, a freedom that she could not recognize in the immediate aftermath of her separation.

The sea

The sea also refers to the speaker’s ex-husband, in part because of the location of their shared coastal rental property, and his homeland. The resonance between the husband and the ocean dovetails with his thrilling depths of mystery and obfuscation, but also with the impending...