" of Lorde's mother and, accordingly, are virtual
             opposites. The first mother is "dark and rich and hidden in the ivory hungers of the other
             mother." Here we immediately have an archetypal contrast of light versus dark; white
             historically represents purity and integrity, whereas black has a cultural connotation of evil.
             Lorde directly contests this blatant fallacy; in her poem, the dark mother's breasts are the
             "huge exciting anchors in the midnight storm." The other mother, who is as "pale as a
             witch," has symbolically devoured the dark mother, who is now "hidden in the ivory hungers
             of the other mother." Lorde is expressing to the reader a newer perspective very fitting for a
             black woman; she is telling us that black can be good, that white is not necessarily always
             better. However, in this case, it seems that the evil "pale" mother has won out, having
             metaphorically swallowed the nurturing nature of the first mother. From a psychological
             standpoint, this could be telling us any number of things about Lorde's idea of motherhood
             or even about her own mother. However, as I am no psychologist, I will stick to the literary
             implications. Lorde closes the poem by saying, "I am the sun and the moon and forever
             hungry the sharpened edge where day and night shall meet and not be one." These concepts
             of day and night and the impossibility of oneness between the two suggest to the reader that a
             joining of the two mothers will never be possible. The differences are just too strong; Lorde
             herself seems to feel caught in the middle amidst these differences. This is the reason she
             feels that she has to "bear two women upon my back."
             Lorde writes the poem in free verse form, as she does most of her poems. The
             lengths of the lines differ largely from one to the next, and even the stanzas vary in size. The
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