Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.
Lines 60-64
That's why
every day
I greet you
with respect and then
you embrace me and I forget you,
- For what does the speaker have respect? Is it for the suit, or for what it represents?
- To consider these lines' figurative language, we'd have to consider the suit a metaphor for something else.
- Could the suit be a metaphor for normalcy? Loyalty?
- It's also possible that Neruda's ode is really what it says it is: an ode to a suit.
- Either way, the speaker isn't always considering the suit and what it means to him. After he puts it on, he forgets about it.
- But notice the imagery in line 64: the suit "embraces" him. The speaker seems to feel guilty about forgetting the suit after such a positive interaction.
- Could the speaker really be saying that he's guilty of taking these daily items, like a suit, for granted? After all, without them, he's unable to do the things he loves, like talk to people and write poetry.
- Or maybe he's not guilty at all. The reason he forgets the suit is because it is a part of him. Maybe he doesn't need to remember it, because it's always there.
Lines 65-70
because we are one being
and shall be always
in the wind, through the night,
the streets and the struggle,
one body,
maybe, maybe, one day, still.
- The two "are one." They're now joined completely.
- These lines remind us of the situations the two have faced together in the poem; they've battled the wind, the night, the people in the streets, and violence. And, ultimately, the two will face death together, too.
- It just took looking at his suit in a new light for him to realize that the two are closer than he may have ever realized.