[5][6] Sullivan describes an indulgence where the young woman feel incomplete unless she can learn to fit into her surrounding environment.

You stand around On the same street corners, smoking, thin-elbowed, Looking down avenues in a lime-green dress With one arm raised, waiting to get older.

From San Francisco to the British town of Rye, she discovers an environment marked by repetition.

[1] Sullivan states in the acknowledgments that this poem is in memory of her father, John O'Sullivan (1950–2014) The baby did not look like my father at all, But there was a resemblance: Our slight awkwardness with each other Sullivan uses many styles of writing including couplets, terza rima and free verse.

[4] Roger Cox from The Scotsman stated, "The opening section of the first of these poems, 'You, Very Young in New York', is one of the most aesthetically pleasing things I have read in a long time".