"Thanks For Remembering Us" by Dana Gioia

Dana Gioia's "Thanks For Remembering Us" uses an ashamed and sarcastic tone along with metaphor to illustrate the fragility of relationships and the paranoia of humans. She brings up the situation of flower's showing up to a house by a mistake, and the couple quickly falls into disarray, wondering if they might have been there because of an affair. She does this through metaphor, as she illustrates the deterioration of the flowers. She writes, "The iris was the first to die, / enshrouded in its sickly-sweet / and lingering perfume." Although this may not be considered personification because flowers can go through life phases, it seems pretty close to describing the women in the relationship, using the word "perfume" to show how she was the one that went from being sweet and kind to distant and angry. Gioia ends the poem with "The room smells like a funeral, / but they're they sit, too much at home, / accusing us of some small crime, / like love forgotten, and we can't / throw out a gift we've never owned." At the end of the day, the relationship falls apart because of lingering questions, and the metaphor continues with the final line, as they cannot dismiss the notion of an affair or deception because no truth has been brought to light. Gioia accomplishes her mission of illustrating the issues of paranoia through metaphor and the flower's timely shriveling into oblivion.