sound/shape/silence

don't ask why and don't tell anyone shapes the poet and the narrative in dempster's "the burning." the narrative and story exist around those two commands, everything that happens is held in those orders. the narrator cannot speak what happened or ask why, so the poem is largely a chronicle of all the sounds elements existing around those experiences. the characters can't speak, but the events do.

the characters are being told to be silent in many areas-- not just in keeping the secret of what happened to them. the children are punished for making noise, the crash of a dish. the tabasco punishment does not equate to the "crime" of having an accident--breaking a dish, talking too loud over the tv. children are typically boisterous, but they are forced to be silent and go inward. they aren't allowed to talk about what happened to anyone, let alone each other, and the commands of don't ask why and don't tell anyone resonate, not only as repetitions in their head, but they are spoken through the experience. the burn of the tabasco reminds them don't ask why, the brother "burning through" them keeps them silent.

in the second section, the memory of the burn coming back after having salsa brings back their story, and is so overwhelming it can't be spoken. there is a complicated, blurred relationship between the past and present, old memories and ones being newly created. the "story" is present even through this sexual encounter occurring in a different place and a different time, and even when directions like come closer and here are welcoming, intimate, and not dangerous.

voice is lacking in the poem--characters are quiet and hushed, but the surrounding sounds ring out-- the zipper clicking, the garage door opening, the squealing bicycle, the chain of the brother's door. objects and surroundings make up for all the silence. it seems like everything is responding to what's happening because the children cannot. in the "black room" while their "bodies dissolve," the goldfish gurgles.