Drug addiction
These poems have an unfortunate subject matter. The poet explains in these poems that life has been complicated since her brother became addicted to hard drugs. As Native Americans living on a reservation, drugs and addiction were always a part of the reality of their situation, but these poems cut to the bone, showing how painful and intimate these struggles can truly become. The poems explore the underbelly of drug addiction, showing various ways that a person's life can fall apart if they mess around with addictive substances. The poems show that underneath drug issues, there are societal issues going untreated.
Meaning and struggle
The poems are pictures of the human need for meaning. The basic function of this theme is when the family looks for the meaning in the shared suffering that the brother's addiction brings the family. Because the effects of drug addiction are so severe, the whole family is left like the poet, searching to interpret the difficulties of life in a hopeful, meaningful way. If they have to suffer, and then the addict returns to his addiction, then the family worries all their struggle will be for nothing.
Hope and the future
Ultimately, the crisis of the poems is this; because the likelihood of relapse and struggle is very high for recovering addicts, the family is left with the crisis of hope. How can the maintain hope without the assurance that tomorrow will be better? That's the whole thing about addictions—it's more difficult to stop than one could even imagine, and that means the whole family fights for hope, because they need a reason to push forward, beside the blind hope of sobriety. Every person must decide for themselves to become healthy, so they cannot fixate their hope on the brother's decision, knowing he might decide not to get better.
