Nineteen

The tone of the poem is nostalgic and thoughtful, as if the speaker is reflecting on a more naïve and curious younger self. Because of autobiographical similarities to the poet’s life, it can be assumed that the narrative persona is a woman. Ostensibly, the poem is about the love affair the speaker’s younger self had with an older, married man, but it actually uses the affair to examine important themes around race, sex, power, and trauma. Although the race of the speaker and her lover is never stated explicitly, the poet uses subtle indicators to suggest that they are both Black people navigating a white landscape. In the very first line, the speaker notes that in her youthful summer, “all there was to eat was white” (Line 1). The whiteness of the foods is symbolic of many things: how bland the young speaker found the world before she met her lover, the purity associated with childhood and dormant sexuality, as well as white-dominant culture. The overwhelming whiteness of the food could suggest the speaker is currently occupying a white-dominated landscape. Crucially, the speaker’s Blackness is defined in the context of whiteness; this suggests that she is othered by dominant white culture.

With the racial dynamic established, the speaker notes that she “snuck around” (Line 3) with an older married man, possibly because she is more at home with him and his friends. This indicates the man too is othered by white society. The phrase “snuck around” suggests that the younger self felt transgressive in hanging out with the man, both because it is an adult activity and because she is upsetting power structures in being with him. The marijuana “stolen” (Line 5) by the men—stolen being another word that suggests transgression—from the campers becomes a symbol of freedom for the group. In Lines 7-8, the speaker notes that she returns to the city “black and dusty” (Line 8) every 15 days to clean her clothes. The placement of "black and dusty" (Line 8) allows the phrase to reference either the clothes, the speaker’s sexual awakening (in contrast with the virginal whiteness of the first stanza), the city, or the speaker herself. By using the descriptor “black” (Line 8), the speaker again asserts her identity.

As the poem progresses, the speaker drops other hints to locate the affair in a specific time and place. She reveals that it’s her first time away from home. Thus, she may be feeling homesick or liberated or both, which is part of the reason she likes an older man. She recalls the details of the man’s appearance, still clean in her memory in the familiar manner of early love. Again, the word “black” comes up, this time to describe the man’s eyes. His beard is described as “musty” (Line 10), a word which carries connotations of a damp, shut-in space. The lover’s beard could literally smell musty, and the description could also indicate he is shut-off from the speaker, a man with a complex past. The next few lines make this past more concrete: The man is an expert at preparing marijuana, which suggests he has been smoking it for a while. He learned it in Vietnam; thus, he is a war veteran. Together, the facts suggest that the man may smoke marijuana as a way to cope with his experiences during the Vietnam war and numb his emotions. The speaker describes her smile around the man as “foolish” (Line 12), indicative of her being a so-called fool in love. The descriptor also makes it clear that in hindsight the speaker knows the power dynamics between her and the man were skewed. She may be speaking of the man with sympathy, but she is aware his actions were exploitative.

Alexander structures the poem as a series of recounted memories, which are at times disconnected from each other. For instance, right after the speaker recalls the man’s expertise with marijuana, she states that he brought his son to visit one day. The discordance is essential because it mirrors the complex nature of the speaker’s feelings about the affair and its uncomfortable facts: “I never imagined a mother” (Line 16), she says, referencing the man’s infidelity. In the next line, she recalls the man asking her if he could steal a kiss from her, the very first night they hung out. Again, this is at odds with his father persona several lines earlier. The verb “steal” (Line 17) is ironic in its context as a request. The lover is asking for permission to kiss the speaker, yet he describes the action in terms of a theft. He knows he is stealing something from her because, as a grown adult, he has the power in the relationship. The tension between permission and theft mirrors the complexity of their relationship.

The third stanza makes it clearer why the speaker was so taken with the man. She “asked and asked” (Line 18) him about his time in Vietnam, “how each scar felt” (Line 18). The lover is a window to the world for the speaker, a source of endless curiosity. She senses that he keeps secrets from her, which she wants to uncover. Though they are physically intimate, the man doesn’t open up about his battle experience, choosing instead to evade the questions by grabbing the speaker “between her legs” (Line 21). For the man, physical intimacy is a way to block out his experiences in war. All he reveals is that he spent his time listening to Marvin Gaye, a famous soul singer. The reference to Gaye and Black popular culture is a sign of shared experience between the lover and the speaker, a reminder of their shared identity. This shared identity is reiterated by the next few lines in which the speaker describes how she left the man to be in her bed by the morning and eat white food again. The man now symbolizes home and familiarity, as well as the freedom to be herself culturally. When the speaker leaves him, she rejoins an unfamiliar, bland, and featureless world. This is followed by the complicated line, “this was before I understood / that nothing could be ruined in one stroke” (Lines 22-23). To the speaker’s current self, her younger self is both more naïve and more impetuous. She cannot yet see that it has taken more than “one stroke” (Line 23), or one traumatic incident, to ruin or affect the lover. A series of overlying traumas—the Vietnam war, racial bias, class inequity—may have shaped him. Alternately, this line could indicate that the young speaker felt overwhelmed in her situation, believing she was devastated by the lover’s emotional indifference. Thus, she behaved more desperately and impetuously. In hindsight, she knows she is resilient, one moment or event cannot make or break a life.

However, the very next image in the poem seems to contradict this thought. The action of the lover sitting up in shock when he hears the sudden squall on the camper roof has multiple meanings. One, it shows that his time in Vietnam has affected the lover more deeply than he lets on. Because he sits up in alarm at the sound that reminds him of Vietnam, it is clear he is traumatized by his experiences there. Second, it might appear that the lover is ruined by his time on the battlefield. However, because nothing is ruined in one stroke, the poem suggests that it is the complex overlay of racial discrimination and war trauma that may have led the lover to become his present self. There is a nod here to the complicated relationship between the Vietnam war and Black Americans. While Black Americans were discriminated against at home, it was considered their patriotic duty to fight in the Vietnam War for America. Many Black American activists, including Rev Martin Luther King Jr., protested the unfairness of this expectation, especially since the war was being fought against another racial other, the Vietnamese.