the poem, as the narrator explains how when he turns one way, "the stone lets [him] go", but as he turns another, he is back inside it again. He also explains that he is "half-expecting to find [his name] in letters like smoke" on the wall. With these images, Komunyakka is able to express to the audience his own realization that any one of the names on the wall could have easily been his own. The audience shares this experience with him through the first person narration.
Metaphor and simile are also used in conveying emotion to the audience. In saying, "I'm stone. I'm flesh." Komunayakaa does not opt for a literal meaning, but a metaphorical one. We know that the narrator doesn't actually perceive himself as stone. Rather, the meaning here is twofold. On one hand, he speaks of his reflection in the stone·that is, the stone version of himself, which looks back at him. On the other hand, he wishes for a "stone" heart, that he might be able to block out the emotions that threaten to overwhelm him, and fight away tears. Nor is he mere "flesh," but a living breathing person, with complex emotions an feelings. "I'm flesh" refers more to a general sense of limp helplessness than a literal reference to his own flesh.
like a bird of prey, the profile of night
The simile "like a bird of prey," conveys the patriotic image of the bald eagle·an American symbol of freedom and national strength. Here however, it is a hunter with a keen eye. That his own reflection "eyes [him] like a bird of prey" conveys a twofold meaning. The first is that very image of America as a hunter, as it might have been portrayed during the Vietnam War; the second, perhaps more intimate expression, is that of the narrator searching, hunting for himself in the reflective image.
According to Lacanian psychoanalysis, the "mirror stage" in the life of a child is that time in which he sees himself in a mirror for the first time, and thinks that his reflection ...