Point of View

“Wings” is told from the first-person perspective of a speaker who experiences a broad range of emotions, ranging from fear to love. Waking suddenly in the night and observing how her sleeping partner appears closer to death than life causes the speaker to feel a profound sense of isolation. The speaker is very connected to her physical body, and she conveys her emotions through her senses. For example, she touches her partner to reassure herself. She also speaks as an individual (using first-person pronouns) and as a unit (using first-person plural pronouns), demonstrating her devotion to her partner.

As the poem progresses, the speaker engages in creative and sensory ruminations that compare the couple to birds flying over a frozen tundra. A tundra is a frigid and treeless biome, and the speaker uses this image as well as “the night” to conjure the possibility of...