Speaker
“Tissue” is a poem of speculation that focuses on a metaphor, drawing out its meaning through layers of imagery. Clues are offered about the speaker, but they serve only as inference points. (For example, the mention of the Koran and an emphasis on architecture). Ultimately, the speaker exists merely to facilitate the reader in contemplating an ordinary item rarely considered beyond its utilitarian purposes.
Tissue Paper
The major character in the poem is the title object. The entire poem is constructed to endow this material with a personality. What is most interesting, perhaps, is that the poet does not rely on personification throughout the poem to accomplish this. Tissue is not given human attributes except for when the grocery slips "fly our lives like paper kites." Metaphor becomes the dominant technique by which tissue is given the status of character, as the poem leaves the reader with the paradox of tissue being both fragile and powerful.
You
Dharker addresses the reader directly with the use of second person. All the poem's commentary on the power and fragility of tissue ultimately invites the reader to consider the materiality of bodies and the delicate nature of life. Like pages well-worn as a result of touch and age, our encounters with each other and with all that life has to offer in the "grand design" of things will leave its mark on our skins. According to this poem, we can choose to see this as allowing light to shine through.
