The Fire This Time

Natasha Trethewey’s elusive poem speaks in the imperative, or second-person voice. In the second stanza, she writes, “Everywhere you go will be somewhere / you’ve never been. Try this […]” (195). The poem concerns the reader’s journey into the future, or possibly an alternate world, and takes a Mississippi highway to get there. The speaker, a guide figure, confidently assures the reader what to expect on her journey, from the mile markers to the shrimp boats to the vessel that will carry her across the water. The second-person voice, however, often masks a first-person experience, and this poem might also be understood as the speaker’s own journey in disguise. 

The writer renders Mississippi into a supernatural landscape through word choice, although the specific imagery remains grounded in reality. Indeed, Ship Island lies off the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. Ship Island also served as a military base for troops of the Louisiana Native Guard, a predominantly African American segment of the Union army during the Civil War. Trethewey’s book of poetry, Native Guard, features poems about this historical group, one of which is “Theories of Time and Space.” Although this poem does not mention the Native Guard, the reference to Ship Island speaks to that specific historical context and how the island has become a tourist attraction and recreation area. Time has altered society’s relationship with the coastline and the island, just as the personal journey the speaker dictates is concerned with the passage of time. 

Trethewey places extra flourishes on these details to imply a grander design, such as “mile markers ticking off / another minute of your life” (195) and the beach’s sand “dumped on the mangrove swamp—buried / terrain of the past” (195). These quotes also subtly reference death by indicating the passage of one’s life and using the term buried. Similarly, the writer mentions a “dead end” (195), “a sky threatening rain” (195), and the mysterious boat that will pick up the reader at the pier as somewhat foreboding images. Moreover, as the first stanza says, “there’s no going home” (195). An impending change looms over the poem as the rain clouds hang over the coastline, and the reader carries a book about the past, such as a personal journal or diary. A shift in atmosphere awaits the reader, although the speaker does not specify what that will entail. 

Things are coming to an end, but there is a new beginning as well. The reader will take a journey on “the boat for Ship Island” (196), come back, and receive the photograph taken before the trip. Trethewey foretells that “the photograph—who you were— / will be waiting when you return” (196). This trip to Ship Island will change the reader (and/or the speaker), indicating it is not merely a short boat ride but a trip to a new dimension or mode of being.