T.R. Hummer’s poem “Where You Go When She Sleeps” is about love and the strange effect it can have on people. Instead of using flowery, comforting, and happy imagery to express his feelings, Hummer uses the simile of being like a boy who has fallen into a silo of grain and died.
This seems like it would be a rather dark comparison to make about love, but Hummer focuses on how the boy died by lack of air. He even uses the structure of the poem to mimic gasping for air by including many commas and splitting sentences between lines. This gives the poem a desperate, urgent tone, almost like someone trying to speak their stream of consciousness and running out of breath.
Hummer also uses the boy’s death to convey how both death and love change one’s life permanently. The boy’s father will never be the same without him, just as the speaker won’t be the same after loving the woman on their lap. Both events take one to a state that doesn’t feel like the world anymore and leaves them forever changed after they experience such things.