Poems by Sharon Olds
Kohn-1
Rite of Passage
As the guests arrive at my son’s party
they gather in the living room–
short men, men in first grade
with smooth jaws and chins.
Hands in pockets, they stand around
jostling, jockeying for place, small fights
breaking out and calming. One says to another
How old are you? Six. I’m seven. So?
They eye each other, seeing themselves
tiny in the other’s pupils. They clear their
throats a lot, a room of small bankers,
they fold their arms and frown. I could beat you
up, a seven says to a six,
the dark cake, round and heavy as a
turret, behind them on the table. My son,
freckles like specks of nutmeg on his cheeks,
chest narrow as the balsa keel of a
modest boat, long hands
cool and thin as the day they guided him
out of me, speaks up as a host
for the sake of the group.
We could easily kill a two-year-old,
he says in his clear voice. The other
men agree, they clear their throats
like Generals, they relax and get down to
playing war, celebrating my son’s life. 1
I go back to May 1937 is about the writer reflecting on her parent’s life. First she describes
them as being young and happy. She describes their lives in college and them graduating
and they’re about to get married. She makes it seem like their still very young and in her
opinion too young to get married, because she describes them as kids and dumb. The tone
shifts and she says she wants to go up to them and tell them not to get married. She wants
to prevent their hurt and actions as a result of getting married. This probably comes from a
certain trauma in her childhood that was caused by her parents’ unhappiness. At the end
she says that instead of preventing the marriage she’ll write about it, so she recognizes that
she can’t influence and change their lives, she can just choose how to react to it.
1
taken from The Bedford Introduction to Literature (6th edition). (pp. 927-928)