# XVII explained — Poetry

> Chapter companion for Poetry by Mina Loy.

## What happens

A disoriented, sensory-driven monologue where the speaker fixates on furniture legs, shadows, and a towel's fringe, feeling the weight of red as a battlefield color and experiencing a spatial collapse from square to round.

## Themes in this chapter

### Alienation and Belonging

The speaker's detachment from the physical world—furniture legs walking, hidden shadows—evokes a profound sense of estrangement.

### The Body and Mortality

The weight of red 'on my knees as a counterpane' and the battlefield imagery tie bodily sensation to mortality.

## Character check-ins

### Ova

Likely speaker; disoriented and introspective, counting fringe and sensing spatial distortion.

## Key lines

> I don’t care Where the legs of the legs of the furniture are walking to

I am indifferent to where the furniture legs are moving.

_Expresses apathy toward the animate quality of inanimate objects._

> Red a warm colour on the battle-field Heavy on my knees as a counterpane

Red, a warm color on a battlefield, feels as heavy on my knees as a bedspread.

_Conflates the warmth of red with the weight of a blanket, linking violence and domesticity._

> Let the square room fall away From a round vacuum Dilating with my breath

The square room dissolves into a round emptiness that expands with my breathing.

_Describes a hallucinatory spatial collapse, where the room's geometry yields to a void shaped by the speaker's own respiration._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_17_se/chapters/xvii
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_17_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_17_se/chapters