“Conversation” is about what Ai thinks death is like.  She uses someone that is dead to describe what death is like in an extended metaphor.  Her words riddle you into interpreting your own meaning of death but describes in a universal meaning.  An image that stuck with me was how she compared death to the tearing of a dress.  That is an excellent metaphor to the unexpectedness and swiftness of death.  I chose this poem because what she says in her writing describes what I would think death would kind of be like. 
 

Conversation

By Ai

We smile at each other

and I lean back against the wicker couch.

How does it feel to be dead? I say.

You touch my knees with your blue fingers.

And when you open your mouth,

a ball of yellow light falls to the floor

and burns a hole through it.

Don't tell me, I say. I don't want to hear.

Did you ever, you start,

wear a certain kind of dress

and just by accident,

so inconsequential you barely notice it,

your fingers graze that dress

and you hear the sound of a knife cutting paper,

you see it too

and you realize how that image

is simply the extension of another image,

that your own life

is a chain of words

that one day will snap.

Words, you say, young girls in a circle, holding hands,

and beginning to rise heavenward

in their confirmation dresses,

like white helium balloons,

the wreathes of flowers on their heads spinning,

and above all that,

that's where I'm floating,

and that's what it's like

only ten times clearer,

ten times more horrible.

Could anyone alive survive it?
 

THE KID
By Ai

My sister rubs the doll's face in mud,
then climbs through the truck window.
She ignores me as I walk around it,
hitting the flat tires with an iron rod.
The old man yells for me to hitch the team,
but I keep walking around the truck, hitting harder,
until my mother calls.
I pick up a rock and throw it at the kitchen window,
but it falls short.
The old man's voice bounces off the air like a ball
I can't lift my leg over.

I stand beside him, waiting, but he doesn't look up
and I squeeze the rod, raise it, his skull splits open.
Mother runs toward us. I stand still,
get her across the spine as she bends over him.
I drop the rod and take the rifle from the house.
Roses are red, violets are blue,
one bullet for the black horse, two for the brown.
They're down quick. I spit, my tongue's bloody;
I've bitten it. I laugh, remember the one out back.
I catch her climbing from the truck, shoot.
The doll lands on the ground with her.
I pick it up, rock it in my arms.
Yeah. I'm Jack, Hogarth's son.
I'm nimble, I'm quick.
In the house, I put on the old man's best suit
and his patent leather shoes.
I pack my mother's satin nightgown
and my sister's doll in the suitcase.
Then I go outside and cross the fields to the highway.
I'm fourteen. I'm a wind from nowhere.
I can break your heart.

Analysis of “Interview with a Policeman” by Ai

          In “Interview with a Policeman,” Ai relates to a policeman and the problems he faces while on the job through vivid imagery in an excellent extended metaphor, by putting him in one of the most controversial scenarios today.  The officer first starts off being interviewed by a reporter.  He relives the moments where while patrolling the neighborhood, he had to stop a store robbery.  A black kid pulls a gun on the store clerk and the policeman engages in a dramatic firefight sequence in the convenience store.  Liquor bottles explode as stray bullets ricochet off of them, creating a surreal environment.  The way she describes these images make me feel like I am right behind the counter of the convenience store.  Ai then reverts back to the reporter scene where she relates the events to the constant re-spawning of crime and how safety is a luxury. 

The policeman’s fear and the fast pace of the event is conveyed in the following lines: “I only fired when he bent down,/ picked up his gun, and again dropped it./ I saw he was terrified,/ saw his shoulder and head jerk to the side/ as the next bullet hit./ When I dove down he got his gun once more/ and fired wildly./ Liquor poured onto the counter, the floor/ onto which he fell back finally.”  In these lines, Ai reveals what goes through the policeman’s mind as his adrenaline overtakes his body, so that when one of the characters fires his weapon, only one will come out alive.  “The ape in the gilded cage”, is the kid behind bars, but after him many more will replace him.  As the poet takes us into the mind of the policeman as he is forced to possibly take the life of someone, she treats us with the ability to accent the moment by putting it into slow motion by controlling the pacing, allowing her poem to take greater effect emotionally.  Ai uses her talents to illustrate what it means to be in a life or death situation seen commonly by policemen, while giving the poem even more depth by using great description at critical points.

Interview with a Policeman
By Ai

 

You say you want this story

in my own words,

but you won’t tell it my way.

Reporters never do.

If everybody’s racist,

that means you too.

I grab your finger
as you jab it at my chest.

So what, the minicam caught that?

You want to know all about it, right? —

the liquor store, the black kid

who pulled his gun

at the wrong time.

You saw the dollars he fell on and bloodied.

Remember how cold it was that night,

but I was sweating.

I’d worked hard, I was through

for twenty-four hours,

and I wanted some brew.

When I heard a shout,

I turned and saw the clerk with his hands in the air,

saw the kid drop his gun

as I yelled and ran from the back.

I only fired when he bent down,

picked up his gun, and again dropped it.

I saw he was terrified,

saw his shoulder and head jerk to the side

as the next bullet hit.

When I dove down he got his gun once more

and fired wildly.

Liquor poured onto the counter, the floor

onto which he fell back finally,

still firing now toward the door,

when his arm flung itself behind him.

As I crawled toward him,

I could hear dance music

over the sound of liquor spilling and spilling,

and when I balanced on my hands

and stared at him, a cough or spasm

sent a stream of blood out of his mouth

that hit me in the face.

Later, I felt as if I’d left part of myself

stranded on that other side,

where anyplace you turn down,

is out for money, for drugs,

or just for something new like shoes

or sunglasses,

where your own rage

destroys everything in its wake,

including you.

Especially you.

Go on, set your pad and pencil down,

turn off the camera, the tape.

The ape in the gilded cage

looks too familiar, doesn’t he,

and underneath it all,

like me, you just want to forget him.

Tonight, though, for a while you’ll lie awake.

You’ll hear the sound of gunshots

in someone else’s neighborhood,

then, comforted, turn over in your bed

and close your eyes,

but the boy like a shark redeemed at last

yet unrepentatant

will reenter your life

by the unlocked door of sleep

to take everything but his fury back.