Outgrown
Outgrown - Penelope Shuttle
Another ride in the time machine takes me back about ten years to my daughter's teenage years, as she stepped out of childhood.
Outgrown
It is both sad and a relief to fold so carefully
her outgrown clothes and line up the little worn shoes
of childhood, so prudent, scuffed and particular.
It is both happy and horrible to send them galloping
back tappity-tap along the misty chill path into the past.
It is both a freedom and a prison, to be outgrown
by her as she towers over me as thin as a sequin
in her doc martens and her pretty skirt,
because just as I work out how to be a mother
she stops being a child.
from Selected Poems (OUP, 1998), © Penelope Shuttle 1998, used by permission of the author.