You must forgive me. Don’t look so surprised,
perplexed, and eager to be gone
It is significant that the first communication between the speaker and her younger self is at once an apology and an admonition. This sets the tone for the whole piece because of the complicated feelings the adult speaker has. She is much more aware of the dangers of the world than her younger self and wishes to warn her, but she also feels sadness for having "spoiled this body [they] once shared" (Line 6). The fact that she uses the word "perplexed" while talking to a nine-year-old also reveals a lifelong propensity for language.
That dream we had, no doubt it’s as fresh in your mind
as the white paper to write it on.
This quote has multiple possible meanings and layers of significance. On the surface, it could just mean that the child version of the speaker wrote down her dreams—perhaps a practice that continued into adulthood. But the word "dream" appearing right before the image of paper implicates the speaker's dream as being a lifelong drive to write. The fact that it is "that" dream and not 'a' dream supports this. As a child, she was always distracted from this dream by something equally important: "a baby vole, or a bag of sherbet lemons" (Line 15). This willingness to examine details and take delight in the senses no doubt helps the development of writing over time.
The altered state of consciousness that accompanies dreaming holds similarities with writing—and in particular, poetry— as they share the language of image, symbols, metaphors, and emotions. Dunmore shows her grasp in handling complex subjects as she encases a dream within a memory within a poem.
I’d like to say that we could be friends
but the truth is we have nothing in common
beyond a few shared years.
According to this poet, friendship depends more on having things in common than it does on a shared age. This quote reveals the rift between the speaker and her younger self, making clear that the distance between them is greater than just the separation of time. As an adult, the speaker has lost her carefree way of moving through the world, too aware of dangers such as injuries, cesspits, and predators. The previous stanza is written in the past tense as the speaker recounts memories of summer ambitions, and moves back into present tense (and reality) with this line. This signifies a change in the direction of the poem. Nothing the speaker can say to her nine-year-old self will prevent her from becoming the woman she is today. The departure between them begins here.
