Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

James Ingram Merrill's poem "Between Us" is a haunting exploration of the boundaries between self and other, reality and illusion, as well as the anxieties that arise in intimate relationships. The poem opens with a moment of surreal disorientation, as the speaker perceives something unsettling on the pillow beside their partner’s head. This moment of confusion and dread sets the tone for the poem, which delves into themes of identity, fear, and the uncanny.

The poem begins with a startling image: "A . . . face? There / It lies on the pillow by / Your turned head’s tangled graying hair." The hesitation and uncertainty in the first line—indicated by the ellipsis—immediately create a sense of unease. The speaker is unsure of what they are seeing, and this ambiguity is central to the poem’s tension. The description of the face as "another—like a shrunken head, too small!" deepens the sense of the uncanny. A shrunken head, with its connotations of death, ritual, and the grotesque, introduces an element of horror into the scene.

The speaker's reaction—"My eyes in dread / Shut. Open. It is there, / Waxen, inhuman. Small."—captures the moment of disbelief and horror as they try to reconcile what they are seeing with their understanding of reality. The face is described as "waxen, inhuman," suggesting a lifeless or artificial quality. This perception further blurs the line between what is real and what is imagined, as the speaker struggles to comprehend the strange and terrifying image before them.

As the poem progresses, the face appears to come to life: "The taut crease of the mouth shifts. It / Seems to smile, / Chin up in the wan light." This subtle movement, coupled with the suggestion of a smile, adds to the eeriness of the scene. The face, which initially seemed lifeless, now appears to be animated, creating a sense of something sinister lurking just beneath the surface of the ordinary.

The speaker's realization—"Elsewhere / I have known what it was, this thing, known / The blind eye-slit / And knuckle-sharp cheekbone—Ah. And again do."—marks a turning point in the poem. The speaker begins to recognize the face, recalling its features from another context. The "blind eye-slit" and "knuckle-sharp cheekbone" evoke images of a skeletal or disfigured face, reinforcing the poem’s atmosphere of horror and dread.

The climactic revelation—"Not a face. A hand, seen queerly. Mine."—is a moment of both relief and deeper anxiety. The speaker realizes that the face they perceived was, in fact, their own hand, viewed from an unfamiliar angle. This revelation shifts the focus of the poem from the external to the internal, from the fear of the other to the fear of the self. The confusion between face and hand highlights the fragility of the boundaries between self and other, as well as the ease with which one’s sense of reality can be distorted.

The final lines of the poem—"Deliver me, I breathe / Watching it unclench with a soft moan / And reach for you"—suggest a moment of reconciliation and connection. The speaker's plea for deliverance indicates a desire to escape from the fear and confusion that have dominated the poem. The hand unclenching and reaching for the partner represents a return to the familiar, the comforting, and the human. Yet, the soft moan that accompanies this movement suggests that the process is not entirely free of pain or lingering unease.

Merrill's "Between Us" is a powerful meditation on the fear of losing one’s sense of self and the ways in which our perceptions can betray us. The poem’s use of surreal and uncanny imagery, coupled with its exploration of the fluid boundaries between self and other, creates a compelling narrative of anxiety and disorientation. At its core, the poem is about the vulnerabilities inherent in intimate relationships—the ways in which we project our fears and desires onto those closest to us, and the moments of terror and revelation that can arise from such projections.

In "Between Us," Merrill captures the complexity of human emotions and the delicate balance between connection and isolation. The poem leaves the reader with a sense of unease, a reminder that the boundaries between self and other, reality and illusion, are not as solid as we might like to believe.

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