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An extended metaphor  is used throughout the poem

Religious connotations are expressed using words such as “light”

Skin becomes thinner as we grow older just as paper thins and fades with time, which implies age and wisdom go hand in hand

The human condition is explored as the poet describes paper buildings

Living tissue” and “turned into your skin” explicitly explores the connection between life and paper

Strength and fragility are played against each other

Alliteration in “smoothed and stroked”

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Imtiaz Dharker is a contemporary poet who was born in Pakistan and grew up in Scotland. She has written five collections of poetry and often deals with themes of identity, the role of women in contemporary society and the search for meaning. She draws on her multi-cultural experience in her work.

She is also a film director and has scripted a number of documentaries in India, supporting work with women and children.

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The poem has ten stanzas that do not have a regular rhyme and have irregular line lengths.

Enjambment is used from one line to the next and from one stanza to the next, perhaps mimicking the flow of paper and also the ongoing nature of human life.

Line length decreases toward the end of the poem, potentially symbolising the decline of human life

References to the thin paper used by architects, shopkeepers and bookbinders are made to connect the practical uses of paper. These images provide an extended metaphor for human skin and life.

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Literal reference to tissue paper and the ways that paper can be used, such as in books for recording information over many years. The poet explores the fragility of the paper that allows fleeting information to be captured and stored, therefore giving it power and impact.

Another interpretation from the title is human tissue and how the human body in many ways has similarities to paper, through the fact that skin ages and the way life leaves it mark on the body.

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1.Fragility of human life - juxtaposed with the power of nature
2.Power: this poem refers to the power of paper to change things and to record our memories.
3.Instability: the speaker suggests that paper (used as a metaphor for buildings) is at the mercy of greater forces, such as the weather.
4.Human essence: this poem compares the significance and fragility of paper documents to the fleeting nature of building structures

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The grand design is the blueprint to describe the way life is built. This could also be a reference to Gods design, as in Genesis 1:1. We are ‘traced with living tissue’, made in the ‘image of God’.

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This is a metaphor which may describe people who always go with what everyone else does. This could also show the power of nature.
Not only is human life fragile, but we are so easily moulded and changed by those around us, by nature and even ‘wind’. In the same way, we write on paper, changing its meaning, tearing it, folding it, using it how we please.

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This is implying that humans are as fragile as tissue or paper. It also implies that we too, the humans on this earth, have bodies made of tissue — skin, bone, flesh etc. But we also draw our plans, devise our lives with paper, which may be thin and fragile or powerful.

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This may connote childlike innocence and ease, suggesting perhaps that if we changed our look on material possessions we will get that childlike state of mind.
This simile also shows that we value freedom but remain controlled, just as a kite flies freely but people control​ their movement.