The Chickadee

The chickadee is mentioned in Line 22 as the speaker’s first true experience with death and loss. The speaker cares for it and attempts to give it a hospitable environment for healing, but their efforts ultimately fail. This pattern will then be repeated later in life, first at the loss of their mother and then with the loss of languages in their job. The chickadee represents a cycle in which the speaker is trapped, attempting to enact change.

The Orphan Girl

A little girl is said to be “[t]he last speaker” of a dead language (Line 44) before she died. In this context she represents both childhood innocence and the inability to flourish in an unwelcoming world. When the little girl dies, it’s presented as one more tragedy in a string of unavoidable losses. However, the humanization of the girl through family and memories...