Summary

In “4½,” the speaker’s daughter curls in bed around her stuffed animals, or bursts into her mother’s room to wake her up. Her dark hair is tangled, and she urgently needs to both pee and eat. She is a tree at the top of a single mountain, or a goat tethered to the tree, pawing for freedom. She knows what she wants and says so.

In “Dusk,” the speaker’s daughter has become her own self, though the speaker thought she would have more time before that separation. The daughter hovers over a chair, trusting her own legs more than the furniture. Now, when she rejects the speaker’s cooking, like a metal claw trying to find something to pick up, it symbolizes growing independence. The daughter is naïve enough still to stand confidently, “impervious . . . to the...