Summary
The speaker says that in the evening, she's often startled and will pause or flinch. She says she doesn't know how old she is. In the morning, meanwhile, she faces an open book, but finds that it is too close for her to be able to read it. She asks how old she is.
Meanwhile, the fog of the valleys fills her ears like cotton. She states again that she doesn't know how old she is. She explains that she isn't trying to complain, and that other people tell her that all of these things are actually her fault. Again, she asks how old she is.
Even the clearest divisions and categorizations are fading away, like the ink of a tattoo spreading out and becoming illegible. She says once more that she does not know how old she is.
Analysis
This poem's repeated refrains—"I do not know my age" and "tell me how old I am"—tell us the root of the speaker's troubles. She is growing old, and dealing with the various problems that arise as a result. These include deafness (represented metaphorically as mist filling her ears) and eroding eyesight (suggested by the image of a book that cannot be read). The phrase "staggeringly halt and burn" gives an impression that the speaker is losing control over her movements, while the image of deep demarcations fading away suggests both memory loss and a possibly broader breakdown in the routines and norms of the speaker's everyday life. Meanwhile, the lines "They say it is my fault./Nobody tells me anything" tell us that the speaker's problems are external as well as internal, with social exclusion and alienation adding to her existing physical problems. While aging itself may cause her to feel disoriented, uncomfortable, and confused, the dismissiveness of others intensifies those feelings.
Although Bishop makes clear that aging is the subject of this poem, the work is oblique and even cryptic in its approach, using almost exclusively figurative language to convey the aging process. These figurative images can feel disconnected—the mist filling the speaker's ears is not linked closely with, for instance, the open book. Instead, proximity and the repeated refrains tie these fragmented metaphors into a broader whole. However, that fragmentation and disconnection are important tonally. They help depict the speaker's confusion, as well as the immediacy of her problems. She does not have the luxury to contextualize each of her struggles within a wider theme—that is, aging. Instead, she confronts each physical and social hurdle individually, taking them on one at a time.
This poem's use of repeated, alternating refrains makes it a close relative to the villanelle form, though it is not itself a villanelle. Bishop concludes the first stanza with the line "I do not know my age." She concludes the second stanza with the line "Tell me how old I am." Afterward, every stanza concludes with one of these lines, alternating between the two refrains. The final stanza includes both refrains, one after the other. This is similar to a villanelle—in which every stanza concludes with one of two repeated refrains in an alternating pattern, with the poem ending on the repetition of both refrains together. Villanelles, because they are oriented around repetition, are often used to convey the feeling of being trapped. This may mean feeling trapped in the patterns of a relationship, social setting, or other restrictive situation. It may also mean feeling trapped by madness or uncontrollable mental patterns. Here, Bishop borrows from this well-known form to portray a speaker feeling trapped by the inexorable process of aging and by her own futilely repetitive attempts to gain control.
