Mouth of a shark (symbol)
The poem's striking first line, "no one leaves home unless / home is the mouth of a shark," immediately introduces the reader to Shire's talent for metaphor and symbolism. Shire is an expert at explaining horror with particularly striking symbols. The "mouth of a shark" is a potent symbol: it compares staying at home to the experience of being torn apart and swallowed. Home would only pull you in deeper into its darkness, digesting you and making you a part of it, after breaking you down. Home has become a hungry, unfeeling predator, a step away from death.
The barrel of the gun (symbol)
"The barrel of the gun" is a startlingly similar image to "the mouth of a shark." It symbolizes the dangers of home, and the fact that home is so violent that it is impossible to live in for refugees. For those living in their native countries, home has become as dangerous as the barrel of a gun, ready to fire and destroy anyone who stays.
Migration (allegory)
The whole poem is an allegorical, emotional look into the much larger story of migration, a phenomenon that is reshaping the modern world. There are an estimated 68 million refugees worldwide, according to some UN estimates; 3.1 million of those are asylum seekers. Shire's poem touches upon literally millions of refugee stories and a much more complex historical event, but she uses the poem's intimate, claustrophobic language to distill all those stories down to their rawest, darkest emotional cores.
Escape (motif)
The whole poem is about escape—about running away, about flight, about being chased. Escape is a constant in the life of a refugee, but its ultimate goal—to reach a safe place—is rarely reached, at least in "Home." Instead, refugees have to live in a constant state of fear, both at home, while they are running to new places in pursuit of a safer place, and once they arrive at a safer place, especially if they are entering without the right papers.
