I love analyzing poems so I will take a crack at it! I had to make a guess about where all the stanzas end, and I prefer to know the name of the poet before starting, but what the heck!
To you who would wage war against me (this sets up some feelings of antagonism...already we are hearing from someone who feels there are forces out there on the verge of "attack")
there are many lines you have not traced on my palms, still you think you know me, (palm readers tell the future of a person by reading palms, so the narrator is saying "you think you know me, but you don't)
when i speak you nod knowingly as if you've read my mind and are only politely acknowledging the confirmation of my spoken words (you think you know what I am going to say before I have said it, that's how well you think you know me.)
but you cannot possibly know what i've been contemplating these days (you can't know what I have been thinking about lately, no matter how much you think you know me.)
my head is full of blood but you show no fear and i do not trust my hands which feel to me like stones (I take this to mean "I am seriously angry and do not trust myself not to beat the snot out of you with my fists.)
you do not cower when i approach though i am like a runaway train (you can't know what I am thinking because I am like a runaway train and you just stand there on the tracks.)
and i can hear your voice cool and steady while my brain screams profanities into the air around your ears, (you can't know what I am thinking because I am busy swearing in my head about what a @#$# you are, yet you just keep talking, cool and steadily.)
our past has given you no reason to be afraid but still i am surprised you cannot see the danger burning brightly in my eyes (I have never done anything to hurt you in the past, so you're not naturally afraid of me, but how can you miss the "angriness" that burns behind my eyes?)
the fire i am struggling to control (I am trying to control my anger, but it is hard.)
as i sit stewing in the kitchen's false light with tears my daughter comes to me frightened by what she cannot see afraid tonight to sleep (I am crying and thinking bad thoughts in the kitchen and my daughter comes in, she's frightened and doesn't know why but she can't sleep.)
i hold her in my arms singing soft words of comfort feeling her heart quickly beating against my chest knowing before i can think that i have forgotten us for our stupid little war (I start to sing to her, comfort her, feel her heart beating. I realize I have forgotten her and my relationship in the face of the stupid stupid "adult" argument I'm having with "the person who thinks he knows me".)
knowing in the incandescent light that anger will never move me as delicately as she has moved me this night (no matter how angry I get with him, it will never be as strong as emotion as the love I feel for my daughter, which is delicate.)
The theme of the poem, as far as I can see, is that there is no emotion stronger than the love between a mother and child. No amount of fiery hate and anger, with all of its accompanying physical rage, can match the simple love that comes with a child.
Also, notice that even though the man in the poem (I am assuming it's a man in the poem) thinks he knows the woman, she is quite quick to point out that he does not really know her. The daughter, though, instinctively senses the fear and the trouble and is unable to sleep because of it. That is real understanding.
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