Summary

The poem begins with a description of the oncoming subway train, most likely a reference to New York City, and the narrator seems to be watching the oncoming train and thinking to herself about her name. She implies that she is a collection of more influences than just herself, calling her hands “mosaicked mirrors” (6). Her name is both a weight and something to live up to as well as a potential source of magic and self-discovery, an “incantation” (10). The poem reads like a stream of consciousness, rather than a linear narrative story.

Analysis

Acevedo’s poem is fundamentally an exploration of identity, influence, and how we become the people we are meant to be. The younger Nina is described as simultaneously attempting to wear what the older Nina provided for her in terms of a blueprint for her life in the imagery of “donning...