2. I can remember you, child,
As I stood in a hot, white
Room at the window watching
The people and cars taking
Turn at the traffic lights.
I can remember you, our first
Fierce confrontation, the tight
Red rope of love which we both
Fought over. It was a square
Environmental blank, disinfected
Of paintings or toys.
Past tense – reader
immediately knows this
person has either gone
or changed
Poet talking directly to her
child
Room is
uncomfortable
and soulless
Birth – the pair
were fighting even
before she was born
Metaphor – the
umbilical cord –
the love bond
between them
The room is sterile
and emotionless –
contrasts with the
struggle she
experiences
3. I wrote
All over the walls with my
Words, coloured the clean squares
With the wild, tender circles
Of our struggle to become
Separate. We want, we shouted,
To be two, to be ourselves.
Could be a metaphor to show
the words she screams while in
labour, filling the room
Oxymoron emphasises the
contrast in emotions the
relationship can bring
Birth is a
struggle for the
mother and
the child
4. Neither won nor lost the struggle
In the glass tank clouded with feelings
Which changed us both. Still I am fighting
You off, as you stand there
With your straight, strong, long
Brown hair and your rosy,
Defiant glare,
As though their relationship starts on neutral
terms
Metaphor of a fish bowl to show
the emotions they have
experienced in their relationship
Time has
changed
but they
still fight
Alliteration and rhyme emphasise the girl’s defiance and
her mother’s admiration of her
5. bringing up
From the heart’s pool that old rope,
Tightening about my life,
Trailing love and conflict,
As you ask may you skate
In the dark, for one more hour.
The metaphor for the umbilical cord again – they are
still connected and daughter still tries to break free
Juxtaposition
between love
and conflict –
parent must
fight with
daughter
because she
loves her
6. How does it link to the other poems?
• Conflict – “Parade’s End”; “Belfast Confetti”;
“Our Sharpeville”
• Adult/child relationship – “Our Sharpeville”
• Pain – “Exposure”
