Innocence (Motif)
In having the poem move backwards chronologically, Shire uses the motif of innocence throughout the poem. It comes up in multiple places, but is most evident in the lines where she describes her and her sister's bodies changing in size and development: "my breasts disappear, your cheeks soften, teeth sink back into gums." This return to their bodies as children marks a return to innocence as it imagines a youth that is not shaped by domestic violence. It is the speaker attempting to set up the conditions under which they can start over and begin to rewrite their story, innocent of the horrors she describes later in the poem.
Hands (Symbol)
Shire uses hands as a symbol in the poem for violence. The speaker makes particular note of what she would do to the hands of men who had wronged her and her sister: "Give them stumps for hands if even once they touched us without consent." While she is making a specific reference here, she is using their hands as a symbol of the harm they cause overall. With this line, Shire is able to communicate the sum total of the sexual violence that men committed when she and her sister were young. They are an appropriate choice to communicate this theme in that, as Shire rewrites these moments, she violently erases their hands, making it impossible for them to commit the acts they did in the past.
Writing (Motif)
Throughout the poem, Shire refers to the fact that she is writing a poem. This is not just a self-aware move, but actually a comment on the nature of her writing itself. While she knows that she cannot fix the painful aspects of her upbringing, she can write about them in a way that helps her, and her sister, heal. Within the textual space of a poem, she has the power to reimagine the past as she wished it was, and undo some of the harm that they suffered. By showing these moments in reverse, and identifying exactly what she would alter or erase entirely, she is revealing the healing potential that poetry has.
