The poetic speaker repeatedly uses the word "red" (Sexton 88), to illustrate that a vague thing contains many specific things; people create meaning from something that is truly ambiguous. Red is a color that has a variety of connotations such as passion, love, blood, a warning, heat, and so on and so forth. These many things that it connotes do not really relate to each other. This idea also is present in the poetic speaker's red examples of the "Swiss flag" (Sexton 88) and "chicken blood" (Sexton 89). The Swiss flag represents Switzerland, a neutral country, one that does not participate in war. Chicken blood is a contrast to the Swiss flag in that it connotes bloodshed in general, which is often associated with war. Chicken itself is an animal that human beings prey upon. Chicken blood conjures the image of a slaughtered chicken. The Swiss flag and chicken blood are far apart in their meaning and connotations, but both are red. The poetic speaker uses both red examples to convey to the reader that meaning is interpreted and not absolute.

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Alex Leoncio