After having read the poem “Bellow,” I realized the only punctuation Limón used were commas, and semi-colons —  except for a period at the very end. After having read the poem again, this time more carefully, I paused after the phrases: “vultures furrowed brow of flight, and blasted sticky Canadian lawn thistle, not because they were well thought, but because I realized while there is so much Limón does with simple, everyday language, she doesn’t often use short, succinct phrases. Not only do the lengthy, complicated phrases help develop complexity in the poem, but by using the punctuation she does, Limón creates a fully comprehensive work.

After having read “After You Toss Around the Ashes,” I was once again impressed by  Limón’s writing. My favorite lines: “What was happening — for whole weeks–was all that was happening and happening,” and “What should we do with her ashes? Water or dirt. Water or dirt,” represent to me, how language functions in each of our lives. (Often, there aren’t complete sentences.) In this poem, we see the action or process of thinking.

Limón orders the words in each poem, and poems in the book collectively, as one might organize the small pieces of a much larger puzzle. So many poems in this section of her book are about death (“The Vine,” and “After You Toss Around the Ashes.”) I wonder if there are any other themes in the book–other than loss, of course.