By Ada Limon
It was only months when i felt like i had been washing the dishes forever.
hardwood planks under the feet, a cord to the sky. What is it to go from a We to an I?
Each time he left for an errand, the walls would squeeze me in. I cried over the nonexistent bathmat, wet floor of him, how south we were, far away in the outskirts
(All the new bugs.)
I put my apron on as a joke and waltzed around carrying a zucchini like a child.
This is Kentucky, not New York, and i am not important
This was before we got the dog even, and before I trusted the paralyzing tranquilizer of love stuck in the flesh of my neck.
Back home, in my apartment, another woman lived there. In Brooklyn, by the deli, where everything was clean and contained.
(Where i grieved my deaths.)
I took to my hands and knees. I was thinking about the novel i was writing. The great heavy chest of live animals i had been dragging around for years; what’s life?
I made the house so clean (shine and shine and shine)
I was suspicious of the monkey sounds of Kentucky’s birds, judging crackles, rusty mailboxes, spiders in the Magnolia tree, tornado talk, dead June bugs like pinto beans.
Somewhere I had heard of that, after noting the lack of water pressure in an old hotel in Los Angeles, they found a woman’s body at the bottom of the cistern
Imagine, just thinking the water was low, just wanting to take a shower.
After that, when the water would act weird, spurt or gurgle, I’d imagine a body, a woman, a me, just years ago, freely single, happily unaccounted for, at the lowest curve of the water tower.
Yes, and over and over I’d press her limbs down with a long pole, until she was still.
“The Last Move” really struck me because it’s about something we all go through at some point moving on and leaving behind something familiar, feeling totally lost in the process. The poem follows a woman who’s left her old life and is now stuck in a new, unfamiliar place, feeling disconnected from herself and everything around her.
The title “The Last Move”, Its simple, but powerful. It’s not just about physically moving houses; it’s about the emotional toll of leaving behind a life and trying to figure out who you are afterward. As a senior about to graduate and start a new chapter, this title hits home. It’s like saying goodbye to high school, friends, and the routines we’ve known for years. The speaker in the poem asks, “What is it to go from a We to an I?” and that question can be asked by any person in multiple different scenarios, especially when you’re about to make a big change and suddenly realize you’re on your own.
One of the lines that really stood out to me is, “Each time he left for an errand, the walls would squeeze me in.” It creates such a strong image of how small and trapped she feels in her new life. It’s not just about the physical space, it’s about how her world feels like it’s closing in on her without the comfort of her partner or her old life. I can picture her standing there in a silent house, feeling the weight of all that loneliness. And then she cries over the “nonexistent bathmat,” which feels like such a small detail, but it says so much about how overwhelmed she is by everything she’s lost, even the tiniest things.
during the moment where she talks about waltzing around with a zucchini like a child, showing humor and sadness. It seems as though she’s trying to fill the emptiness with anything she can, but it’s just not enough. Her life feels out of place, and she doesn’t know what to do with herself. That’s something I think a lot of us can relate to when we’re facing a big change, we try to act like everything’s fine, maybe even make a joke out of it, but deep down, we know we’re struggling.
The poem shifts when she starts talking about Brooklyn, where she used to live, compared to her new life in Kentucky. “This is Kentucky, not New York, and I am not important,” she says, and it’s so clear how out of place she feels. It made me think about how we all have those places where we feel like we belong, and when we leave, it’s like a part of us gets left behind, too. In Brooklyn, she had her routine, her identity, and a sense of who she was. Now, in Kentucky, everything feels strange “spiders in the Magnolia tree,” “rusty mailboxes,” and “dead June bugs.” The images she uses are so vivid and unsettling, like she’s in a world that doesn’t make sense to her anymore.
One of the most haunting parts of the poem is when she talks about a woman’s body being found in a water cistern, and she imagines herself as that woman. “I’d imagine a body, a woman, a me,” she says, which is honestly pretty creepy, but it makes sense. She’s feeling so submerged in her new life that it’s like she’s drowning, trapped under all this pressure and unable to break free. It’s a powerful metaphor for how lost and invisible she feels.
The way the poem is structured adds to this feeling of chaos. The lines are all over the place. There’s enjambment, which makes the thoughts spill into each other, like her mind is racing and she can’t get a break. There are also these little asides in parentheses, like “(All the new bugs)” and “(Where I grieved my deaths),” which feel like her inner voice, commenting on everything she’s seeing and feeling. It’s like we’re getting a peek into her mind and seeing how jumbled and overwhelmed she is by it all.
Reading “The Last Move” made me think about how it feels to be on the edge of something big, like leaving high school and heading into the unknown. The speaker’s sense of disconnection, of not feeling like she belongs in her new life, really hit me. As graduation gets closer, I think a lot of us are feeling that mix of excitement and fear. We’re about to move into something new, but there’s also the sadness of leaving behind what we’ve always known.
