Lifeboat 12

“Well, I got a new mum, / but I’m her secondhand kid. / She makes me feel / worn, / torn, / worthless.” 

Ken feels unwanted by his stepmother. Their relationship is strained, and he believes she is sending him away to Canada because she wants to get rid of him. Hood uses the metaphor of a “secondhand” or “hand-me-down” piece of clothing to convey Ken’s feelings.

“Now, the third night of bombing, / I notice German planes / make a different sound from ours. / German planes are diesel. / They throb. / Ours hum.”

One of Ken’s hobbies is studying the war planes, and he learns to differentiate between British and German planes based on their sounds. This introduction of Ken’s hobby foreshadows an important turning point later in the story. Ken heroically spots the plane from Lifeboat 12 and identifies it as a British plane, allowing the crew to signal to the pilot. Without Ken’s knowledge, the passengers on Lifeboat 12 may not have been rescued because they would have needed to stay low in case the plane was German.

“It’s just something we do— / pick up the pieces of this war, / wrap our hands round the danger, / try to contain it.”

Shrapnel is a key symbol. Ken and his friends collect pieces of shrapnel from the bombs they find on the ground. By pocketing the shrapnel, Ken notes that they are trying to contain and limit the danger the war brings. In this sense, Hood uses the shrapnel to symbolize the war’s threat.