It shows the relationship between the poetry and the place. The poet describes the emotions and the feelings that the house of five fires produce.
The poet has internalized the loss and alienation that have come from her experience of removal. This historic consciousness is echoed by her personal loss in the death of her parents and the loss of loved ones.
It is a sense of loss that creates tremendous longing, a longing edged with anger, that's reflected in poems like "Underground Water" and "Scraps Worthy of Wind."
Because she doesn't want to do the assignment and she doesn't want her past uncovered which is why Anagnos says, "Annie. I wrote them no word of your history."
