The Speaker

The speaker in "Wings" wakes at night and has a vivid sensory experience. From "the moon's glaciers" to the couple's heartbeats mingling "steadily over the tundra," the speaker demonstrates a creative associative thinking that relates deeply to nature (2 and 13). When the moonlight causes her sleeping partner to appear lifeless, the speaker addresses her fear by paying attention to her senses. She touches her partner, listens to their mingled heartbeats, and imagines them as a pair of migrating birds. In the end, the speaker acknowledges her partner's warm humanity.

The Partner

The speaker's partner remains asleep throughout the poem, and readers only meet the partner through the speaker's perception and imagination. In sleep, the partner resembles cold marble, which suggests both death and beauty. The speaker's fear leads her to eventually imagine the pair as migrating birds mated for life. The couple's heartbeats mingle in the silence of...