The word "floating" is used to describe the rather mixed
feelings that the narrator has as she is taken away from her home country to a new
country that is foreign to her and where she has to struggle to belong. Note the
following quote:
...and instead of sinking down as I'd always
done,
magically, that night, I could stay
up,
floating out, past the driveway, past the
gates,
in the black Ford, Papi grim at the
wheel,
winding through back roads, stroke by difficult
stroke,
out on the highway, heading toward the
coast.
Swimming is clearly an
extended metaphor that is used in this poem to describe the experience of leaving the
narrator's homeland, the Dominican Republic. Finally, and rather ironically, the
narrator is able to float for the first time, but only as they leave her beloved
homeland. This of course reflects the narrator's understanding of what is happening to
her and the tremendous loss it is both to her and all of her family as they are forced
to flee their home country as political refugees.
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