"Back before you existed to me, you were a theory. Now I know everything: the words you hate. Where you itch at night...I remember thanking him each time the session was done. But mostly what I see is a human hand reaching down to lift a pebble from my tongue." (Smith 22).
This excerpt was from "Savior Machine" by Tracy K. Smith, where she expresses her newfound insight of the psychiatrist she used to see; he is finally on the same playing field and not some superhuman who possesses a type of power over her. I chose this passage specifically for the last line, mostly because of its various interpretational routes. Overall, the gist of the poem is that Tracy Smith currently sees her previous therapist as someone who is as much as a human being as she is. He has faults too, as seen when she writes "the words you hate" and "where you itch at night." She is no longer a patient to him anymore, therefore a different relationship is established when the two meet up again. She still remembers the stereotypical roles each of them played: her as the patient who expresses and vents her emotions haphazardly, and him as the observer, watching and listening to her words carefully. Therefore, the last line can be interpreted as how she sees him as someone who helped her express her feelings in an ordered way, meaning he lets her thought process become clear and structured. The pebbles in her mouth can be representative of her struggling to get her words out. Alternatively, the pebble can be indicative of a medication that she was prescribed, and his job is to help wean her off of it, or assist her with coping and adjusting. I found it interesting that this line concluded her poem because it definitely left me off on a confusing note. I think that this poem definitely touched upon the perception of power between people, and how a certain position or title is often immediately paired with a higher status in an abstract hierarchy.
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