Nineteen

The tone of the poem is nostalgic and thoughtful, as if the speaker is reflecting on a more naïve and curious younger self. Because of autobiographical similarities to the poet’s life, it can be assumed that the narrative persona is a woman. Ostensibly, the poem is about the love affair the speaker’s younger self had with an older, married man, but it actually uses the affair to examine important themes around race, sex, power, and trauma. Although the race of the speaker and her lover is never stated explicitly, the poet uses subtle indicators to suggest that they are both Black people navigating a white landscape. In the very first line, the speaker notes that in her youthful summer, “all there was to eat was white” (Line 1). The whiteness of the foods is symbolic of many things: how bland the young speaker found the world before she met her lover, the purity associated with childhood and dormant sexuality, as well as white-dominant culture. The overwhelming whiteness of the food could suggest the speaker is currently occupying a white-dominated landscape. Crucially, the speaker’s Blackness is defined in the