“A Little Closer to the Edge” by Ocean Vuong is a 20-line poem composed of 10 couplets that, as reflected by its structure, contemplates the duality of passion. While the poem focuses on the coupling between a man and a woman, the poem’s speaker is their son who, by narrating their actions, is imagining his own conception. Given that the speaker is the living consequence of his parents’ relationship, his access to hindsight allows him to highlight the transience of love and the inevitability of sin.
The scene of the poem begins by describing a moment between a man and a woman: “Young enough to believe nothing / will change them, they step, hand-in-hand” (1-2). In just the first line, Vuong foreshadows the fracture in the man and woman’s relationship by ending the line on “nothing.” As such, he suggests that the man and the woman will soon believe in nothing, faithless and disillusioned. Nonetheless, in the present, they still believe that “nothing will change them,” or in other words, they believe that they will forever be a loving couple who are “hand-in-hand.”
Once again, Vuong deconstructs this portrait of affection through the imagery of his next stanza. The couple is stepping “into the bomb crater. The night full / of black teeth” (3-4). Together, the images of the bomb crater and black teeth create a mood of unsuspected naivety while setting an ominous tone. The bomb crater may not pose an immediate threat to the couple, but it is a remnant of destruction, a premonition of what is to come. Meanwhile, the night, whose teeth and danger remains undetected by the couple, waits for an opportunity to strike — when they render themselves vulnerable by entering its mouth, the bomb crater.
The third and fourth stanza alludes to the transformation of the couple’s relationship in comparison to its current state: “His faux Rolex, weeks / from shattering against her cheek, now dims / like a miniature moon behind her hair” (4-6). In these lines, the speaker juxtaposes a future act of violence, in which the man hits the woman and shatters his watch, with gentle imagery from the present, in which the watch illuminates the woman like a moon. Then, the fourth stanza introduces an allusion to the Bible by asserting that “in this version the snake is headless — stilled / like a cord unraveled from the lovers’ ankles” (7-8). Here, “this version” is both a parallel to the story of Adam and Eve while also being a fleeting stage of the couple’s relationship. For now, the snake that tempted Adam and Eve into sin is powerless, but only temporarily. Line 7 ends with the word “stilled,” emphasizing how the snake’s temptation has not been eliminated entirely, still present as a loosened cord fallen at the lovers’ feet.
The next few stanzas describe the man and woman initiating sexual intimacy as “he lifts her white cotton skirt, revealing another hour” (9-10). The phrase “revealing another hour” is followed by wordplay between the phrases “his hand” and “his hands” (10), which suggests both the image of the man’s hands and the hands of a clock. By implying the passage of time, this clock motif highlights the dichotomy between present and future as well as between the man and the woman. As the speaker calls upon his father — “O father, O foreshadow, press / into her as the field shreds itself / with cricket cries” (11-13) — he acknowledges the despair that he would cause his mother and their home. In the lines, “show me how ruin makes a home / out of hip bones” (13-14), the man is holding onto the woman’s hip bones during sexual intercourse, conceiving a child and establishing a soon-to-be broken home. Similarly, the speaker beseeches his mother — “O mother, / O minutehand, teach me / how to hold a man the way thirst / holds water” (14-17) — with a focus on his mother’s desperation and need, the comparison to thirst and water emphasizing her dependence on his father. In both his invocations, the speaker asks his parents to show or teach him their behaviors, which reflects how their actions have left lasting impressions on their son. The rest of the 9th stanza further reveals their son’s adapted behaviors as he proclaims, “Let every river envy / our mouths. Let every kiss hit the body / like a season” (17-19). In using the pronoun “our,” Vuong captures the legacy of passion and sin while repetition of the word “let” demonstrates the duality of being bold and reckless in love. Finally, the last two lines relate back to Adam and Eve: “Where apples thunder / the earth with red hooves. & I am your son” (19-20). The apple in the story of Adam and Eve is known as the forbidden fruit, so an abundance of falling apples correlates to the man and woman’s overindulgence in their sexuality. Finally, “& I am your son” renders the speaker as the ultimate witness to the man and woman’s sin, allowing him to testify about its inescapable nature.
Great job with your explication essay, Jennifer! I thought your consideration of the duality of meanings was very interesting and in fact connects to Dickinson’s poems that we discussed in class. Namely, Dickinson’s “Tell all the truth but tell it slant” contains the same duality of meaning that is suggested by the poem’s structure, where a certain line can be considered grouped with either the previous line or the next one, thereby giving different and contradictory meanings. Your approach with breaking down the meaning of “nothing”, pairing either with the first or second lines, follows a similar approach.
While I liked that you made note of this duality, I believe that you could have gone further with it, in terms of explaining how that duality and contradiction feeds the poem’s overall meaning. For instance, is it possible that the speaker is arguing about the fallacy of love?
Also, I enjoyed how you made note of the special situation of the speaker: the son of the lovers depicted in the poem. However, I think you could have expanded on the significance of his perspective being highlighted further. While the poem is filled with references to passion, does this perspective introduce an element of family and heritage?
Hi Jennifer. I thought your analysis was very thorough and that it evaluated the poem in numerous dimensions.
In my initial read of the poem, I thought the poem was more representative of how we oftentimes don’t think of our actions beforehand and that they lead to unforeseen yet permanent consequences. In this case, that would mean that the son is the result of a relationship that wasn’t fully understood and that the parents rushed into having a child due to their carelessness. However, I found your lens to be rather insightful. In particular, the use of foreshadowing that you noted was rather powerful and something that I hadn’t noted beforehand. The depiction of the bomb creater is a good example of this obersvation and paints the picture that there were signs that this decision was a not great beforehand.
Your parallel with Adam and Eve was also quite remarkable. Biblical figures are oftentimes used as teaching figures especially in older poems and your observations on how temptation and sin plays a role in this poem was noteworthy. Furthermore, it presents a religious narrative that might be insightful as some religions have particularly negative viewpoints on actions like pre-marital sex which may be the cause of the son whose parents seem to no longer be together.