Managing Political and Environmental Anxiety
The first thirteen lines of "The Leash" ruminate on feelings that have become increasingly common: fear and despair over politics, violence, and climate catastrophe. Limón mentions bombings (perhaps overseas warfare or drone strikes?), automatic weapons and mass shootings, and the hatred that has deepened in American politics. She also describes a toxic polluted river that has turned "orange and acidic," and fish dying in large numbers. These scary realities can easily be overwhelming and lead us to "fear humanity" and embrace cynicism, and we may want to disengage entirely from the news or sink down into despair. But Limón urges the reader decisively away from this despair with interjections such as "Don't die" and "isn't there still / something singing?" The word "unsayable" in line 5 acknowledges that many of the emotions associated with violence and tragedy are hard to even express. However, the poem argues that we must explore and express these negative feelings—but, importantly, not let them incapacitate or destroy us.
Limón doesn't sugarcoat reality, and she admits, "The truth is: I don't know." She doesn't lull the reader into a blind ignorance or foolish positivity. However, she refuses to let these vast and daunting crises be the end of the story: there is hope, peace, and life that are just as important.
Resisting Self-Destructive Urges
Self-destructive impulses are a recurring main theme in "The Leash," and the speaker consistently encourages us to resist them and to stay alive. After describing the polluted river, the speaker asks in lines 7-10:
How can
you not fear humanity, want to lick the creek
bottom dry, to suck the deadly water up into
your own lungs, like venom?
We are invited to see how environmental anxiety can lead to self-destruction. This urge to "suck the deadly water up" could have two overlapping motivations: to save nature and save other people by selflessly taking the toxins into your own body, and/or to commit suicide. This self-sacrifice comes out of desperation and fear, but the speaker immediately rejects it in lines 10-11: "Reader, I want to / say: Don't die."
Later in the poem, the dog becomes an image of self-destructive urges, this time motivated by love rather than fear: she wants to run into the street to greet the pickup trucks. Once again, the speaker repeats: "Don't die, I say," this time to the dog (line 25). This parallel emphasizes that self-destructive, reckless love can be just as dangerous as self-destructive despair. Humans share the former tendency just as much as the latter, in lines 29-30:
Perhaps we are always hurtling our bodies toward
the thing that will obliterate us, begging for love
It is easy to see how attractive these two extremes are, to bury ourselves in despair, or lose ourselves chasing love to combat that despair. The poem argues that we must resist both extremes, and choose the harder, more balanced middle path of keeping our emotions under control and choosing to keep living.
Temporariness and the Passage of Time
A secondary theme of "The Leash" is that all things are temporary. It is this reality that keeps the poem centered in cautious hope, rather than unrealistic idealism. The speaker says the opposite in line 25: "I want [the dog] to survive forever." This is a common emotion felt by pet owners, because of how hard it is to lose an animal you love. However, the remainder of the poem is full of images that focus on temporariness and the passage of time.
In line 26: "we decide to walk for a bit longer," and in line 28: winter's "cold corpse" is coming. The latter image gives the former a new depth: it means continuing the dog walk for a little while, but the dog walk is also a metaphor for life in this poem—the phrase "a bit longer" acknowledges that the speaker and her dog will both eventually die.
In lines 30-31, we are "begging for love / from the speeding passage of time": the speaker again acknowledges that her desires for love and canine companionship exist despite how quickly time moves. And in the final two lines, the hope of walking together peacefully is complicated by the final phrase: "at least until the next truck comes." A dog walk is a simple, daily thing, but as a metaphor, it takes on massive importance in the poem. Walking together signifies our ability to coexist in harmony as living beings, and that life is fleeting, but still deeply worthwhile.
