It was a dream

Lucille Clifton

in which my greater self
rose up before me
accusing me of my life
with her extra finger
whirling in a gyre of rage
at what my days had come to.
what,
i pleaded with her, could i do,
oh what could I have done?
and she twisted her wild hair
and sparked her wild eyes
and screamed as long as
i could hear her
This. This. This

    When I first read this poem, the first thing that came to my mind was the structure of the poem.  In the title only the first word was capitalized, like it was just a sentence.  The first word in the poem isn't capitalized at all.  The first six lines is one sentence and the only punctuation was a period at the end of the sentence.  The following line contains just one uncapitalized word with a comma after it.  Throughout the poem, she doesn't capitalize any of the "I"s, except in line nine.  The last line she definitely used capitalization and punctuation. 
     I took this poem as Clifton having a confrontation with herself.  The title helps put the poem together.  If you read the title as part of the beginning, it fits and makes the poem seem a little less crazy.  When she says, " my greater self rose" I took it as more of her conscience or "good" side that was talking to her.  She was scolding herself for her life she lived.  I thought it was interesting how in line four she said, "with her extra finger."  After doing some research on her I found that in her family she has a genetic disease that makes people in her family have an extra finger.  She told herself that her future outlook wasn't good.  She tried to plead with herself, but it ended up making her even more furious.  I think the last line of the poem is her answer to the question in lines eight and nine.  This dream might have been an epiphany of how her life was going, or a wake up call. 

Polydactyly