Identity and Duality in Golden Ax: The Split Self on the Afrofrontier

Thematic Claim: The Self as a Fractured Frontier

In Golden Ax, Rio Cortez constructs identity not as a fixed essence but as a landscape of rupture and negotiation. The speaker repeatedly confronts a split self—one that is internally felt and another that is externally perceived, shaped by race, gender, family history, and the geography of the American West. The book’s central tension lies in the struggle between authenticity and survival: to belong, the speaker must sometimes erase or double herself. The term “Afropioneerism,” introduced in the Author’s Note, frames this duality not as a flaw but as a creative adaptation. Using imagination to bridge the gap between who she is and how she is seen, the speaker reclaims the frontier as a space of both division and possibility.

The Two Selves in “I’m Forced to Imagine There Are Two of Me Here”

The clearest articulation of the split appears in this poem, where the speaker names her alter ego “Rio” and instructs her to “remind them of our one white grandmother / do what it takes to make them think we are like them.” The dual self is a survival mechanism: one part performs whiteness, while the other watches from inside. The line “I pull her hair against our head and burn / the water out” suggests a violent suppression of the body’s natural expression. The speaker practices not dancing, makes her lips smaller—acts of assimilation that carve the body into an acceptable shape. Yet the poem ends with a moment of mutual mercy: “we show each other mercy / take the same bite of a cracked rib.” The two selves are not enemies; they share the same wound. This duality is not resolved but held together by shared trauma.

The Out-of-Body Observer in “It’s Like That Scene in Annie Hall Where Annie Leaves Her Body”

Here the speaker describes watching herself from across a subway car and a taxi. The dissociation is explicit: “what is important is that she is two / Annies that what reaches one not reach the other.” The speaker nods yes while her body mechanically moves through intimacy. The “hole in my mouth” becomes a passage through which she ghosts—an image of the self as hollowed out, performing agreement while the real self floats elsewhere. This poem extends the theme into romantic relationships, where being seen by a lover does not guarantee being known. The split becomes a way to survive desire that cannot fully arrive.

The Public Self Under Scrutiny in “Double Threat”

In this poem, the split self is forced into the open by a white woman’s repeated questioning. After the speaker spits at the sidewalk in frustration, a bystander asks, “am I alright.” The speaker’s repeated “Yes, thank you, please, yes” becomes a survival script. The internal self is small and ashamed (“Smaller than before”), while the performed self is polite and reassuring. The mother back home “avoiding a full-length mirror” underscores the inherited pattern of not looking too closely at one’s own reflection—a family legacy of self‑division. The poem reveals how race intensifies the split: the Black body is read as potentially dangerous, so the speaker must manage the gap between her anger and her public face.

Symbolic Connections: The Covered Wagon as Spaceship and the Salt of Memory

Cortez’s metaphor of the covered wagon as a spaceship, referenced in the book’s symbolic architecture, condenses the dual identity into a single image. The wagon is both a historical vehicle of westward migration and a sci‑fi vessel of cosmic imagination. The speaker is grounded in her family’s real journey—enslavement in Louisiana, post‑Reconstruction migration to Utah—and simultaneously reaches toward an imagined, liberated future. This duality mirrors her internal split: she is both a descendant of pioneers and a time‑traveler inventing herself anew.

Salt appears throughout the collection, from the epigraph’s description of the Great Salt Lake to the preservative and tear‑like quality of salt. It symbolizes both what is preserved (memory, heritage) and what stings (racial trauma). The speaker’s identity is salted: preserved by family stories yet stung by erasure. The robin’s egg, another recurring symbol, represents fragility and new life. In these symbols, the split self is not a break but a tension between preservation and transformation.

Complexity and Contradiction: Two Birth Stories and the Work of Knowing

The poem “I learn to shoot a bow” offers a concise statement of duality: “I guess this is where / I am Orion. With two birth stories. / In one story I come from a sea god / with the forest as my mother, and in / the other, I have no mother at all.” The speaker refuses to choose between myth and erasure. She inhabits both. This double origin story refuses a single, tidy lineage—just as the book refuses to resolve identity into one coherent narrative.

“What Begets What Begets” explores the cyclical nature of knowing and self‑reflection. The speaker admits, “I am always explaining myself to my lover” and distinguishes between two kinds of knowing: close and submerged. The poem ends with a moment of solitary recognition: “I see myself / reflected in the bathroom mirror … and I know better by looking at me next to nothing.” This is not a unified self but a self seen in relation to emptiness—a fragile, earned gratitude for the multiplicity.

The chapter “Eden” shows the speaker at a kitchen window, washing her daughter’s dishes, watching an elk. She asks “am I home or just visiting” and decides to answer for herself. The poem “Family Tree at Earth’s Surface” culminates in a shift from counting and naming ancestors to accepting emotional connection. Both poems suggest that identity can be claimed rather than discovered. The split self does not need to be healed; it can be embraced as a source of perspective.

Study Questions and Answers

1. How does the poem “I’m Forced to Imagine There Are Two of Me Here” dramatize the speaker’s internal conflict between assimilation and authenticity?
The poem splits the speaker into “I” and “Rio,” where one half instructs the other to perform whiteness—reminding others of a white grandmother, suppressing dance, making lips smaller. This internal dialogue shows the speaker actively policing herself to fit in, while the violent imagery of burning water and biting lips reveals the cost of that performance. The ending, where the two selves show each other mercy after hitting a deer, suggests that the split is not resolved but becomes a shared, tender burden.

2. In “Double Threat,” how does the white woman’s repeated questioning force the speaker to perform a version of herself?
The white woman asks “am I alright” twice, and each time the speaker answers “Yes” with increasing politeness. The speaker’s internal state—shame, anger, the “red surge”—is hidden behind a compliant mask. The poem contrasts the raw, private self (the one who spit) with the public self that must reassure. The mother’s avoidance of the mirror reinforces the idea that Black women in the family have learned to manage a dual appearance.

3. What role does the covered wagon as spaceship symbol play in expressing the book’s theme of duality?
The covered wagon represents the historical migration of Black pioneers to the West, while the spaceship imagery invokes Afrofuturism and the imagination required to survive erasure. Together, they embody the speaker’s dual perspective: she is rooted in her family’s real, painful past and simultaneously reaches toward a self‑made future. This symbolic hybrid mirrors the split identity that cannot choose between memory and invention.

4. How does the poem “What Begets What Begets” complicate the idea of self‑knowledge?
The poem distinguishes between two kinds of knowing: one as close as the palm (unconscious) and one that is “submerged.” The speaker reflects on seeing herself in the mirror after a long day and “knowing better by looking at me next to nothing.” Self‑knowledge here is not stable or total; it emerges in cycles and requires effort. The poem suggests that identity is a ring that loops back on itself, and that accepting the multiplicity of the self is a form of grace.

5. In the final chapter “Eden,” how does the speaker resolve the tension between being split and belonging?
The speaker stands at a kitchen window, watching an elk, and asks “am I home or just visiting.” She decides to answer for herself, then describes a “snow cup” melting into the “summer people” they truly are. The act of claiming her own answer transforms the split from a source of anxiety into a choice. She is “really leaving now” through the told story of her life—meaning she moves through the narrative she has constructed, accepting that identity is both inherited and self‑authored.

For further exploration, see the book overview, the poet’s persona, and the symbol of the covered wagon as spaceship.