1.)      What imagery does Shapiro use in the first three lines to evoke sound and sight? How do these images become increasingly significant in the context of the entire poem?Shapiro uses color and sound imagery in the first three lines to evoke images within the reader. The “quick soft silver bell beating, beating, And down the dark one ruby flare Pulsing out red light like an artery,” (1-3) The ruby flare/ red light is supposed to be the lights on an ambulance that we can see from a distance.  The thought of a soft, steady slow beating, and the reference to pulsing artery, make us imagine someone who is slowly breathing their last breaths, waiting for an ambulance. The images created in these first three lines become significant in the rest of the poem because the imagery is repeated (mostly the red death imagery 2.)      On a literal level, what contextual significance do the following words and phrases have: mangled (line9) “tolls once” (line11) “terrible cargo” (line12) “rocking, slightly rocking” (line13) deranged and composed (lines 15 and 16) ?The word mangled describes the dead bodies, which makes us picture this scene more dramatically.  The phrase, “tolls once” is a reference to the funeral bells ringing. The phrase “terrible cargo” refers to the dead bodies in an insensitive way. (they are cargo, not victims? à heartless) The phrase, “Rocking, slightly rocking” phrase is making a reference to rocking a baby.  3.)      Analyze the metaphors in line 3, 8, 22,and  29-30. What pattern do they create and why is it appropriate to the poem? Line 3 reads, “Pulsing out red light like an artery” Line 18 reads, “One with a bucket douches ponds of blood”. Line 22 reads, “Our throats were tight as tourniquets” Line 29 -30 read, “But we remain, touching a wound That opens to our richest horror.” All of these lines contain metaphors referencing the incident to blood, (very gruesome) In line 3 the ambulance light is compared to an artery (they carry lots of blood). In line 18 a guy is mopping huge amounts of blood (ponds) off the street into the gutter. Line 22 makes you feel sick reading it, thinking of your throat with those little clenching devices on it (sick!)  Lines 29-30 talk about how we can’t just leave things alone and let them heal, we keep messing with them and make them worse (our wounds).   4.)      What is added to the theme of the poem by the metaphors in lines 20-21 and the similie in 24-27?Line 20-21 read, “One hangs lanterns on the wrecks that cling, Empty husks of locusts, to iron poles.” This metaphor adds the idea that the cars and our bodies were just earthly casings like the shell of the “locusts” that is shed and left on the trees. Lines 24-27 read, “Our feet were bound with splints, but now, Line convalescents intimate and gauche, We speak through sickly smiles and warn With the stubborn say of common sense,” This metaphor compares the witnesses of the accident to convalescents (or hospitalized inmates) They are shocked by the inappropriate “grim jokes” and “sickly smiles” that they are putting forth in this time.