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18 pages • 36 minutes read
Sarah Kay"B" (If I Should Have a Daughter)
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2011A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The Cleansing Rain
The poem mentions rain in reference to heartbreak, and it is ultimately characterized as a great cleanser that will help mend the daughter’s heart. The narrator states that, as the girl will inevitably encounter heartbreak, she will keep a supply of chocolate handy. For the heartbreaks that chocolate cannot fix, the mother states she will have rainboots ready for the girl, as “rain will / wash away everything if you let it” (Lines 27-28). Rain, a symbol for tears, is not represented as a sign of weakness but a means of cleansing things. The outpouring of emotion provides a fresh start that will allow the girl to begin anew.
Eyes and Vulnerability
The daughter’s eyes are mentioned a couple of times in the poem, especially in the context of naivety, and this speaks to the theme of maintaining a sense of vulnerability in a world filled with challenges. The girl is described as having “small hands and big eyes” (Line 51), which implies that the girl is limited in her experience—being so young—but still curious about the world, and the mother wishes for her to retain this curiosity. The mother also tells the girl not to apologize for the way in which her “eyes refuse to stop shining” (Line 54). The shining eyes with which the girl will regard the world speak to her ability to still be vulnerable in a cruel world that could so easily harden her.
The Ocean’s Tide
The notion of the ocean’s tide helps to weave the theme of recurring patterns into the text. The mother explains that the days when her daughter is disappointed are the days she should be the most grateful because, nothing, says the narrator, is more beautiful than the way in which “the ocean refuses to stop / kissing the shoreline” (Lines 39-40), despite the number of times it is swept away. This image of the sea coming in to embrace the shore helps compound the notion that the girl will have to start over and over again, only to try once more. The ocean will continue to meet the shoreline in an eternal encounter that represents the cyclical nature of things. But the image also relays that this persistence is rooted in love, and that there is beauty in that.
Fire and Romance
Fire is included in the poem in the context of the mother’s advice to the girl about romance. She warns the girl not to put her nose up in the air; the mother has done that trick herself “a million times” (Line 18), and it gives her an excuse to try to save the boy “who lost everything in the fire” (Line 20). Alternatively, says the narrator, the smoke will lead the girl to try to change the boy who was the one to lite the fire. Thus, the smoke from the fire acts as a kind of lure, pulling the daughter toward a boy she will either wish to save or to change. The mother wishes for her to avoid both types of relationship dynamics, as both are representative of the unhealthy relationships women often find themselves drawn into. Here, smoke and fire symbolize the danger of unhealthy romances, where one partner is trying to save the other; while the smoke is alluring, the mother hopes to dissuade her daughter from repeating the same mistakes she made.
