Question

A white vet’s image floats

closer to me, then his pale eyes

look through mine. I’m a window.

He’s lost his right arm

inside the stone.

—“Facing It,”
Yusef Komunyakaa

Which device is “I’m a window” an example of?
The narrator sees the reflection of another veteran looking at the memorial. The narrator says, “He’s lost his right arm / inside the stone.” “Inside the stone” is a metaphor for

Answer 1

- “I’m a window” is a metaphor — the speaker directly compares himself to a window (he reflects the other veteran’s image).
- “Inside the stone” metaphorically describes how the memorial absorbs/contains the losses of war — the missing arm (and, by extension, the wounded or dead) is swallowed up by the engraved stone, symbolizing death, injury, and the way memory is fixed in the monument.