Hips (Symbol)
The speaker's hips are the central image of this poem. They are a complex image, functioning through synecdoche as a representation of the speaker herself, while being personified throughout the poem. Meanwhile, the hips also hold a symbolic function. As a symbol, the speaker's hips stand in for power and autonomy. The speaker notes the size of her hips, their insistence on taking up space as they move through the world, and their ability to do whatever it is they want. More specifically, the hips symbolize the power present in womanhood, and especially black womanhood: Clifton's description of the hips explicitly notes that they do not conform to the expectations and restraints of gender and race.
Magic (Motif)
This poem is tightly focused on physical reality, centered almost entirely on the speaker's body. Despite this interest in the concrete, Clifton does occasionally evoke the mystical and the magical, suggesting that the speaker's body imbues her with a power that stretches beyond the starkly physical realm. The poem explicitly states, "these hips are magic hips," and, a moment later, describes the way that the speaker's hips can seemingly put men under a spell. Through the motif of magic, Clifton insinuates that her speaker is capable of a power that is primarily psychological, emotional, and intangible in nature, even if it is in some ways rooted in the tangible, physical, and embodied.
