This poem is about the childhood trauma experienced by Henry, a character in The Dream Songs who is a veiled autobiographical version of Berryman, although exactly how autobiographical is still a matter of controversy; Berryman admitted similarities between Henry and himself but refused to say the two were the same person. In this poem, Henry’s father kills himself by shooting himself with a gun outside Henry’s window. Berryman’s father died in the same way when he was eleven, and the incident haunted him his whole life.