No Legs

Characters who have no legs symbolize those who do not have the cultural foundations they should be able to depend on. In some characters, like the protagonist of “A Woman With No Legs,” this is literal, since this character lost her legs to complications of diabetes, and now cannot dance and participate in her tribal society in the same ways she used to. In other poems (like “Cloud Watching,” where the grandmothers dance their legs off) this image is figurative, but it always represents instability and a lack of cultural continuity.

Angels

Angels symbolize whiteness, and the white religion, Christianity, from which they are drawn. Because the poems depict a culture that has been subdued by Christianity, the speaker transforms the purity that angels typically represent into something more problematic. The angels of these poems suggest perfection that is always out of reach for those...