This poem in particular resonated with me. Not just because it's the manuscript's title poem, but because of the way it's written: though the narrator is talking to a loved one throughout the entire poem, it feels like he only is talking to him/her at the beginning and the end. The middle is the narrator telling a story, ostensibly to the loved one, but truly, to no one in particular. He just had to get the story out, since it felt like "a river burns inside [his] mouth."
And I love how the narrator wants to get as much emotion out of the story as possible. At one point, the narrator says, "unnamed it leads to less heartbreak, so name him Max." Ross Gay is making it obvious here that he is saying: I want you to feel this.
As the devastating story continues, we get lost in the narration. We (or at least I) forget that the narrator is talking to a lover. Then, in the last couple of lines, there is an abrupt transition where he begins to talk more obviously to the beloved. This switch in tone reminds me of a manic person trying to pretend he's sane. It says "I am fine" with a crazy-eyed smile. I'm not sure if my reading is accurate, but I think that the "unnamed boy" is the narrator himself and that this abrupt switch in tone mimics the mania of the narrator after having "brought the shovel down," so to speak.
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