Hanging Fire: Symbols

Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.

“My skin”

The poem opens with the speaker declaring, “I am fourteen / and my skin has betrayed me” (lines 1–2). On the poem’s surface, the “betrayal” of the speaker’s skin most directly relates to her experience of puberty. As a teenager, she’s hyper-attentive to any imperfections that mark her skin, like acne. Such visible signs of puberty likely make her self-conscious, particularly around “the boy [she] cannot live without” (line 3). As the speaker goes on to note, she also feels upset by the fact that her “knees are / always so ashy” (lines 6–7). The speaker’s reference to “ashy” skin strongly implies that she is Black. That is, the dry skin on her knees has made her otherwise dark complexion appear lighter. With this detail in mind, the speaker’s opening reference to her skin’s “betrayal” must also be read through the lens of race. This lens helps us understand how the speaker’s anxieties aren’t simply a matter of being a teenager. Many of her insecurities are indeed typical of many teenage girls. However, her sense of her own Blackness in a prejudiced world adds complexity to these insecurities, and it also sharpens her awareness of injustice.

Closed Door

The refrain that concludes each of the poem’s three stanzas repeatedly refers to the closed door of the speaker’s mother’s bedroom. This closed door has two distinct symbolic meanings. Most directly, it symbolizes the closed channel of communication between mother and daughter. We readers can’t know the reason for this closed channel, though we can speculate. Perhaps her mother is suffering from depression or other illness. Perhaps she simply needs time alone. Whatever the reason, her closed bedroom door keeps her withdrawn and unable to offer the kind of maternal support the speaker clearly longs for.

On a more general level, the shut bedroom door symbolizes the speaker’s fearful sense of her own future being closed off. Throughout the poem she ruminates on the various anxieties and injustices of her present life, with no sense that these troubles will wane over time. Furthermore, she repeatedly expresses a concern that she’ll die prematurely. When the speaker asks, “will I live long enough / to grow up[?]” (lines 32–33), she conveys a powerful feeling that her future is as closed to her as her mother’s bedroom door.

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