The Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean symbolizes interconnection and origin. The speaker describes this setting as “planet-like,” showing how the microcosm of one place connects to the macrocosm of the world. When the speaker puts her hands in the water, she specifies that this is “the water [she] was born next to” (6).

Birds

Birds symbolize freedom through their ability to fly. The speaker observes an eagle “[unfold]” overhead, larger than her shadow (4). Later in the poem, the speaker wonders if upon his wife’s death, the magician Harry Houdini released his wife “Like a white bird begging for the sky outside the cage” (19).

Jellyfish

The jellyfish also symbolize freedom because of their transparent, “free-swimming” bodies (14). The speaker covets their physical movement when she imagines what it would be like to be propelled by locomotion, “pulse by pulse’ (15).

Trains

Trains symbolize the ephemeral nature of life. Train imagery...