Highway Murder

The poem ‘’Highway 12, Just East of Paradise, Idaho’’ by ‘’Robert Wrigley’’ irritated me in the extent that the author was detailed in the way the truck hit the deer on impact. I can understand the author’s purpose of this, but having an overly imaginative imagination made it uncomfortable for me to read it and go in depth with it.  The way the author detailed the doe getting hit by the truck and having ‘’her tongue extend and her eyes go and her eyes go shock and vacant.’’ Made me think too vividly of how the deer possibly looked when it got hit. It’s mostly sad to read about animals getting hurt or killed for that matter in poems or any kind of read, which is mainly why I have a negative view about this. I have no complaints about the poem and I understand it perfectly. The only aspect is that it was kind of bothersome for me to read.

On the other hand, it was interesting yet kind of weird how the author was able to see the impact of the doe so perfectly even though there were no lights on the road. The author also could have been in the driver’s seat and was driving while he saw the impact, which would have been slightly difficult since he was focused on the road rather than anything getting hit in front of him. ‘’For which, I admit, I was grateful, the road there being dark, narrow, and shoulderless…’’. It’s understandable that the light from the truck hitting the doe made it easy to see the impact slightly to see what had happened with the doe, but it is still kind of odd. Maybe it was such a fast impact that the author did not even know what was happening until after the author had driven off from the scene, and happened to remember everything so perfectly and vividly while he was driving home? It also sounds disturbing how the author describes the doe as ‘’she skidded along the right lane’s fog line true to as a cue ball, until her neck caught a sign post that spun her across both lanes and out of sight beyond the edge.’’ The doe’s neck hitting the sign post sent chills down my spine since due to the fact that I can imagine the doe’s neck making a noise against the sign post as she made a turn, making it seem like it hurt the doe to some extent, even though she was dead. It is also easy to imagine the doe falling off a cliff or just lying dead on the floor, which makes it more disturbing to me, since it was just witnessed that a doe got hit by a truck that had shock-stricken eyes and did a turn to where she hit a sign post with her neck.

The poem itself is understandable that a doe got hit on impact and the driver (in this case, the author) witnessed it and described in some detail as to what had happened to the doe. But, it is still kind of a disturbing read, especially if the reader has an overly imaginative imagination. It is just kind of hard to understand as to why the author wrote a poem about how a doe got hit by a truck while on a drive home and wrote in detail as to what happened to her.

Ever After

The poem I decided to read was "Ever After" by ''Joyce Sutphen''. After reading it out loud for who knows how many times to get the meaning of it, piece by piece, it started to make sense. But, I was still curious about some parts, as how the first stanza was worded. "What am I to you now that you are no longer what you used to be to me?''. Maybe I am reading too fast and not taking the time to really read between the lines to see what it means, but it does not make sense to me. Somehow, I feel like it means that the author is referring to (which I have possibly concluded to the husband, since the author is a woman) is not the same person they used to be when they were together as a whole? Or maybe the wife feels like the husband has changed how he feels about her and everything towards her? It is intriguing to depict what she is referring to, or maybe I am just way too deep into just that one sentence.

As the poem went on, it starts to show that a possible divorce had taken place, or that the couple are so distant that they do not even know what they are considered, anymore. As the author goes on, she says ''words we rarely used (husband, wife) as when we once posed (so young and helpless) with our hands (yours, mine) clasped on the knife that was sinking into the tall white cake.'' , I feel like that could potentially mean that while they were younger (assuming they were in their teens or early 20's/30's), they were so helplessly in love with each other and knew where they were heading in life. But, earlier in the poem, it discusses how everything had been basically falling apart, and how ''...there is no us'', and ''...we once were is divided into me and you who are not one but two separate and unrelated persons except for that ex-...''. From those lines, I can assume that either their marriage fell apart by the ''there is no us'', but the marriage could possibly still be there, but the two people that got married are not there. Their thoughts, actions, emotions, things that sum up who they are are not present in the marriage, thus they are not two people, anymore. They are ''two separate and unrelated persons...''. But, why the ''ex-'' part? Is there an ex that could have taken the place of the author and that is why the marriage is not present, anymore? 

The poem makes sense, then turns in a different direction to make you think, as in the ''ex-'' part, that made me go off course (or just anyone in general reading the poem), and ascends back to the point where the author and the person they were with had something in the past, but that has all changed dramatically and they are not who they were, anymore. The poem is very interesting, and it made me think between the lines quite a bit, I just hope I am not reading too much into the lines that I have disregarded what they author is really referring to.