After you have read the poem, reflect on and write down careful answers to each of the following questions.

1. What is your impression of the speaker from reading the first stanza of the poem? Why do you think he stabs the girl? Do you think he should have gone to jail? What do you think happened in the scene described in the first stanza?

2. How does the second stanza of the poem affect your reading of the poem? Why do you think the speaker changes his story? Why do you think the speaker cannot remember exactly what happened? What do you think really happened?

3. How has this incident affected the speaker’s life? Why do you think the speaker keeps dreaming about the mother?

4. Describe the speaker’s character. Give specific examples.

5. What do you think the last line of the poem means? “And this. I’m here or not here. I can’t tell. I stab her. I stab her again. I still can’t.”

6. What do you think this poem is actually about?