Tightropes and Handstands (Symbol)
The speaker recognizes that her younger self would rather be walking on her hands or balancing her way across a tightrope than be forced to sit quietly listening to a grown-up. The imagery of such physically active play is an expression of childhood. Doing handstands and balancing on tightropes is something the speaker obviously does not do as an adult, as evidenced by her careful way of moving (Line 8). Those who continue these kinds of activities into adulthood, in general, do so outside the confines of regular societal expectations.
In this context, tightropes and handstands symbolize the fantasy realm that children inhabit, a place where any physical feat is possible and there is no threat of injury.
Summer (Symbol)
Summer is traditionally the season of the year that symbolizes the prime of life, lushness, freedom, and youthful idealism. When the speaker begins reminiscing about the past in the second stanza, she asks her younger self if she "remembers how, three minutes after waking / we'd jump straight out of the ground floor window / into the summer morning?" (Lines 9-11). The poem's stanzas vary in length, and it is here that they begin to get longer as the speaker recalls fond memories. When her fears intrude (starting with the wasp trap and den by a cesspit in the third stanza), the stanzas consecutively shorten. In this way, the speaker's nine-year-old self lives in a perpetual state of summer, while the speaker cycles through her own seasons in the poem.
Scars and Scabs (Symbols)
In the second stanza, the speaker points out the scars she has accumulated over the years, evidence of pain she has endured. For this speaker, scars symbolize unhealed pain. Rather than view her scars as lessons she has learned or signs of strength and endurance, she sees her body as being "spoiled" and blames herself for it (Line 6).
The speaker's scars are later contrasted with the vivid image of the speaker’s younger self peeling off a scab from her knee and bringing it to her mouth to taste. Peeling off scabs could leave scars, but the young girl doesn't care. For her, this is a moment of ecstatic presence in the world. She is not afraid of anything, including the marks that her various exploits leave on her own body. The speaker, on the other hand, has "fears enough for [them] both" (Line 29).
Leaping, Jumping, and Lunging (Motif)
The image of the young girl using force to fling herself into the world appears numerous times in the poem. Her favorite thing to do is to "leap from a height," which shows her fearlessness (Line 5). While the speaker reminisces about the past with her nine-year-old self, she recalls how they would "jump straight out of the ground floor window / into the summer morning" (Lines 10-11). Just three minutes after waking she was already bursting with energy to get outside into the day. One of her summer activities included "[lunging] out over the water / on the rope that swings from that tree" (Lines 25-26).
All of these contrast with the careful and fearful way the adult speaker moves through the world. Not only does this show a distinction between childhood and adulthood, but it suggests that something specific (or perhaps cumulative things) occurred to this speaker, causing her to lose the fearlessness she embodied as a child.
