Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Dorianne Laux’s “Twilight” explores themes of transformation, decay, and the fleeting nature of youthful preoccupations. Through the lens of a daughter’s peculiar fascination with decomposition, Laux paints a vivid portrait of both the natural world’s cyclical processes and the evolution of a young girl’s focus, as she transitions from morbid curiosity to the pleasures and responsibilities of adolescence. The poem is a meditation on change, the inevitability of decay, and the strange beauty that accompanies both.

The poem begins with a strikingly visceral image: the daughter placing rotting fruits on the backyard deck’s rail—“pear, apple, over-ripe banana, in October a pumpkin.” These objects, emblematic of sustenance and life, are here presented as subjects for observation and decay. The deliberate act of documenting their gradual decomposition reveals the daughter’s scientific curiosity and perhaps a fascination with the impermanence of the material world. Laux uses sensory imagery—“pear with its belly bruised,” “banana skins tanning like animal hides,” “pumpkin sinking sweetly into its own orange face”—to immerse the reader in the grotesque yet captivating details of this slow disintegration.

The fruits’ progression from firm and vibrant to “musk-fragrant, incremental descent” mirrors the natural cycle of life and death. Laux’s language evokes not only the visual aspects of decay but also its textures, smells, and even its taste: “a crack in the crust and the dank pudding spewed out.” This visceral description suggests that decay, often viewed with aversion, can also be a source of fascination, even delight. The daughter’s calm and persistent documentation contrasts with society’s usual discomfort with decay, presenting it instead as a natural, even beautiful, process.

The pumpkin becomes a central symbol in the poem, particularly as its carved features collapse into themselves: “pumpkin with its knifed hat tipped jauntily above carved eyes, pumpkin sinking sweetly into its own orange face.” The pumpkin’s gradual disintegration from a playful object of Halloween festivity to a “grimace slipping down its furred chin” reflects a loss of innocence, a movement from joy to inevitability. It is a powerful metaphor for time’s erasure of even the most cherished and deliberate creations.

Midway through the poem, the focus shifts from the fruits and their decay to the daughter herself. Laux writes: “When did she become disinterested, distracted by her life?” This rhetorical question marks a turning point, signaling the end of one obsession and the beginning of new preoccupations. The daughter’s immersion in documenting decay gives way to the routines and explorations of adolescence—“the rink where her skate blades shimmed the ice,” “the stalls,” and her interactions with horses. These activities suggest a turn toward life, vitality, and the sensory pleasures of movement and connection, in contrast to her earlier focus on stillness and decline.

The description of the daughter’s purse—“filled to the clasp with the evidence of her life”—underscores her transition from childhood to adolescence. The purse, containing “lip gloss, stubby pencils and colored pens, a little book,” is both a symbol of burgeoning independence and a repository of her identity. The small photo ID, with “her own face gazing out through the tiny plastic window,” captures a moment of self-awareness. She is no longer the girl obsessed with “ruin and collapse” but one whose gaze is turning outward, seeking connections and new experiences.

The poem concludes with an evocative image of the daughter feeding a horse: “See her lift the tawny jewel to his whiskered lips, her hand level, her fingers flat and quivering.” The tactile detail of this interaction—“the first dangerous bite”—underscores the trust and risk involved in connecting with another living being. The daughter’s “gratitude” for the horse’s acceptance of her offering marks a shift from her earlier fascination with entropy to a celebration of life and its possibilities.

Laux’s use of richly descriptive language and precise imagery transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary, revealing beauty in both decay and growth. The juxtaposition of the daughter’s earlier obsession with decomposition and her later embrace of the animate world underscores the poem’s central theme: the inevitability of change and the human capacity to find meaning and beauty in every stage of life’s cycle. Through “Twilight,” Laux invites readers to consider their own relationship with impermanence, encouraging both reflection and celebration.

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