The drum in “Making a Fist” is a symbol of the speaker’s life. She describes “the life sliding out of [her]” (Line 2) as “a drum in the desert, harder and harder to hear” (Line 3). The “drum” (Line 3) fading in the distance could symbolize the rhythm of the speaker’s heartbeat or breath. Both are considered the source of life within people, and their fading rhythm symbolizes her “life sliding out of [her]” (Line 2). The “drum” (Line 3) could also symbolize the dizzying, faint feeling the speaker has while experiencing car sickness. When someone is experiencing carsickness, they often feel as though they could pass out, and everything fades into the background. The speaker believes she is dying and feels as though her “life” (Line 2) is leaving her, just as a “drum” (Line 3) fades in the distance.

In “Making a Fist,” the speaker is “[lying] in the car” (Line 4) while driving with her mother as a child. In the third stanza, years later, the car shifts from a tangible setting to a metaphoric one when the speaker says she is “still lying in the backseat behind all [her] questions” (Line 16).