In a poem of reminiscent adolescence, Sharon Olds defines a young girl who has the capacity to judge adolescent emotion with the benefit of time, for she is now a mother herself. This definitive view of adolescent values and thought is mingled with the mystery of symbolic mathematics, which represents a maturity of this thought and a colorful insight into the development of a young girl as she becomes a woman. This poem also accentuates …showed first 75 words of 612 total…

…showed last 75 words of 612 total…social change as develops during the years of innocence and discovery. This flight from the conventional representation of a call to maturity is unique to Olds' style, whose feministic predilections shape her poetry into a brochure for the masses of women everywhere. Her mindful detail in respect to diction and metaphor create a poem that fosters the imagination, and a vicarious acceptance of those scenarios in which our whole world seems to fall to change.