I graduated with a B.F.A. in creative writing at the University of Evansville, and poetry was always the most difficult form of writing for me to understand. However, poetry also became the most beautiful form of writing I studied once I began to understand it a little better. This particular poem was one of the first poems I read at UE that really evoked emotion from me. It's not the happiest poem (what poem about the death of a worker boy by blood loss from losing a hand could be happy?), but the most important thing to get from this poem is the feelings the narrator is trying to convey.