Before the poem says anything, it says nothing at all: its title is a row of asterisks, an untitled blank. That suits a poem about the awkwardness of labels. The first line asks "What will they call me?", and the page itself declines to name what it holds. The poem comes to us attributed to Elijah, and we have only the text to go on. It is enough.
The poem is about waiting to be labelled and dreading the moment it happens. The speaker imagines a stranger's greeting and offers two possibilities, "Ma'am?" and "Sir?" Judging by these lines, the worry is about gender: how the speaker will be seen, and whether the word chosen will fit. The poem never states this outright, so that reading is an inference, but the choice of words points strongly towards it. The central idea is larger than a single awkward greeting, though. It concerns living with an anxiety that has no end date. The closing line, "For I'll never know", admits that the speaker can't predict whether the fear will fade or become permanent.
The construction mirrors that uncertainty. The poem is built almost entirely from questions: "What will they call me?", "Will I even be able to not feel the fear?", "Or will it stay?" Only one line is a plain statement, the one about anxiety creeping behind the speaker. Even that is a kind of answer the speaker would rather not have. There is no rhyme and no regular beat, and the line lengths swing from a single word to a long, breathless sentence. "Ma'am?" and "Sir?" each get a line to themselves, so each is isolated like a spotlight, or a pause while someone holds their breath. They also form a closed pair. The poem offers only two choices, and it is possible that this narrow menu is part of the problem. That is another inference, but the stark presentation invites it.
The most vivid image is the anxiety itself, which "creeps behind me ready too tackle at any give moment." Anxiety becomes a presence rather than a feeling. It follows the speaker, stays out of sight, and waits to pounce. "Behind" is a clever choice, since you can't look at something at your back, so you can never confront it or be sure it has gone. "Tackle" is a physical, almost sporting word. It suggests sudden impact rather than slow dread, as if the fear might knock the speaker flat in the middle of an ordinary conversation. "Any given moment" (the text reads "any give moment") stretches the threat across all of daily life, so there is no safe time or place.
The slips in the text, "too tackle" for "to tackle" and "give" for "given", give the poem an unpolished, immediate feel, as though it were written quickly and left as it came. Whatever caused them, they make the voice sound unguarded rather than carefully crafted. A tidier version might feel less honest.
A quiet shift in hope also happens in the fourth question. The speaker doesn't ask "Will the fear go away?" but "Will I even be able to not feel the fear?" The phrasing treats not feeling fear as an ability to be gained, like a skill one might never learn. The word "even" adds doubt, as if relief were too much to expect. Then comes "Or will it stay?", where "stay" makes the fear sound like an unwelcome guest, or a pet that has followed the speaker home. The final line begins with "For", which sounds like the start of an explanation, yet what follows explains nothing. It simply admits that the future is closed to the speaker.
The poem matters because of what it leaves out. It offers no reassurance, no triumphant ending and no lesson. Instead it captures a feeling many young readers know, whether about identity or something else: the dread of being seen and named by others before you've settled how you want to be seen. By stopping on "I'll never know" instead of tying things up, it respects how real that uncertainty is. In only a handful of short lines, it gives that fear a shape and a place to stand.