Bull's eye / Bullseye (Motif)
Introduced in the first poem "The Bull," the bullseye appears again later in the collection. The green-blue colors that are used to describe the bull's eye in the epigraph poem resonate with the ocean, thus signifying the poet, Ocean, himself. With a "pen tip jabbed" in his back, the speaker in "Not Even" feels the "mark of progress" (Line 3). In "Dear Rose," the speaker has an arrowhead in his back, suggesting there could have been a target (a bullseye) there.
The Ten Bulls (Allegory)
In Zen Buddhism, of which Vuong is a practitioner, The Ten Bulls of Zen is a metaphoric progression of the steps toward self-realization and enlightenment. These steps include the search for the bull, the discovery of footprints, the perception and catching of the bull, the taming and riding that ensues, the transcendence of the self and of the bull, the reaching of the source, and finally the return to the world with this new understanding. In the epigraph poem "The Bull," the speaker reaches towards an animal-shaped entrance that is compared to the speaker himself. Through this comparison, Vuong introduces the collection's theme of delving into the self in order to make sense of a life after loss.
Biblical Stories (Allegory)
Several Biblical stories appear in the poems of Time is a Mother. One example is "Waterline," which references the story of Noah and the Ark. In this poem, the speaker imagines being left behind with another man as the great colossal wave of destruction makes its way toward them. Knowing that death is near, the speaker asks to enter a "nearly-gone yes // the way death enters / anything—fully / and without a trace" (Lines 23-26). Another example is "Ars Poetica as the Maker," in which the speaker describes the creation of a human being from ash and clay. This is comparable to the way God created Adam, the first man, from the dust of the ground in Genesis.
Nature (Symbol in "Rise & Shine")
In "Rise & Shine," nature symbolizes the tension between the speaker and his mother. As the speaker leaves the house and walks down the street, the poet describes the birch trees that sway but never touch, and the crickets who unhinge their jaws. The trees represent the way the speaker and his mother do not directly interact in the poem. In reality, crickets make noise through a process called stridulation in which the sharp edge of the lower wing, called a scraper, is rubbed along the file of the upper wing. The image of crickets unhinging their jaws distorts and humanizes the natural occurrence of the way they make sound. This is then compared to a pipe held steady over a blue flame. The son's drug use impacts his relationship with his mother, whose face in the window is blurry and distant as an unfamiliar god.
Wedding Dress (Symbol in "Beautiful Short Loser")
In the poem "Beautiful Short Loser," the speaker addresses someone in the second person (perhaps the reader), saying "I got your wedding dress on backward, playing air guitar in / these streets" (Lines 2-3). Wedding dresses in the West are typically white to signify purity and virtue, while in the East they are red to signify luck, celebration, and abundance. The color is not specified in the poem, just that the dress is worn backwards. This is a direct example of what Vuong has called in interviews "performing literary drag." The term "drag" refers to the performance of exaggerated femininity, masculinity, or other forms of gender expression, usually for entertainment purposes. Here, the speaker wears and subverts a costume for women that (no matter the color) signifies a union.
