Marilyn Hacker:Fourteen

We shopped for dresses which were always wrong:

sweatshop approximations of the lean-

lines girls' wear I studied in Seventeen

The armholes pinched, the belt didn't belong,

the skirt drooped forward (I'd be told at school).

Our odd-lot bargains deformed the image,

but she and I loved Saturday rummage.

One day she listed Loehmann's. Drool

wet her chin. Stumbling, she screamed at me. Dropping

our parcels on the pavement, she fell in

what looked like a fit. I guessed: insulin.

The cop said, "Drunk," and called an ambulance

while she cursed me and slapped away my hands.

When I need a mother, I still go shopping.

 

 

 

 

After i read the poem i realized that it seems more depressed than exciting. The title is what I believe the girl's age and how she is still being influenced by society. A girl at the age of fourteen is still trying to find herself, but she is still dependent like how she goes shopping Also when i read the poem i realized that she seems very insecure about her body and the way that she dresses. My personal opinion on the poem is that it is very understandable. Most teens always feel insecure at a point of time. Most of them feel insecure about the clothes that they wear and how others may look better than them at some point. After reading line 6 which says ''Our odd-lot bargains deformed the image,"that states that the speaker appreciates the time she and her mom spent. Even though this ideal image is being "deformed" she enjoys it. The speaker also struggles with insecurities dealing with her mom actually being a drunk and can't really provide for her child. The text on line 12 it states that "The cop said, "Drunk," and called an ambulance." The speaker seems to not be able to move forward without her mom to provide guidance in her life. The 17 year old discusses her daily problems and discusses her problems like her belts dont fit, her skirts fall forward and she can't shop for the right things that she needs. I would describe the theme as dependency and insecurity by the way the speaker describes her home life and how even though her mom is a drunk, she still has to live with her to survive in the world. She is insecure about herself through the clothes she has, but she also accepts herself that way because that's all her mother and her can buy to begin with. The speaker seems to have a rough lifestyle, but she deals with it and looks at the positive like at the end. The last line states "When I need a mother, I still go ahopping." The line states that even though she has a rough lifestyle she still feels happy even though she lives in a very broken life.