"Thief by Alice Major You have made the others in this house more careful. Locks drilled _____In doors. Boards nailed to basement windows. _____The cats [puncture] cautious ears at the covert crumble of leves _____in the outer dark. You pawed the intimate clinging confusion of drawers. Your breath mingled with the potpourri that scents my shelves. All the time, your face in shadow. Your hands, hasty, random stupid for what they take _____and what they leave behind. But you will not make me take precautions. I know your face too well. You are the thief who, one day, will _____seize all that I hold precious. You will come again, lock-breaker, thug with thick fingers. No care that I can take, no shutter on my heart, can keep you out. I know the scythe-curve of your shadow --------on the wall." * The _____ means blank spaces. There is supposed to be a meaning as why the poem is spaced out wierd. If u got an idea why that is, please tell me. OK ... What do you think the poem's meaning is? My opinion is that the writer is talking about someone that she's in love with and that person cheated on her before, and now she's afraid that her lover will cheat again, yet there's nothing she can do about it because she's in love with him. "No care that I can take, no shutter on my heart, can keep you out" By the line "Your hands hasty, random, stupid for what they take and what they leave behind" ...i think it means that she thinks she's better than the other woman her lover cheated on her with. If you find any poetic devices (metaphors, personification or anythin else) PLEASE let me know ;) Also, if the poem is about love, then what's going on with her drilling locks in doors, and boards nailed to basement windows...? Would that be herself isolating from everything else?
