Language, form and structure

• The poem shifts in time. We see the mother on Armistice Sunday, then she remembers her son at various stages of growing up, and finally ends in the present
• Caesura and enjambement are used throughout to represent the difficulty the mother is having controlling her emotions
• When the mother “released a song bird” she is referring to allowing her son to be free to make his own way in the world
• Imagery of fabric used to create a sense of closeness between the mother and son; she remembers being in physical contact with him
• Reference to the “playground voice” shows she is grieving her little boy, as well as his possible death