The entire poem has an innocent, childlike tone to it that is represented through symbolism. The way that the poet describes their parent’s bodies as “pitiful,” and “untouched,” gives it an innocent feel. Also, when it says, “I take them up like the male and female dolls and bang them together at the hips,” it gives a childish feel because that is something a child would do, not a grown adult. The childish tone relates to the purpose of the poem which is to reflect on the persona’s childhood and the issues that their parents had which is a common real life situation. Also, when the poem says, “you are going to do bad things to children,” it is referring to not only the persona being a child, but to the parents themselves as being children. The “children” represent the parents because earlier in the poem, the persona says, “they are kids, they are dumb,” meaning they are going to do bad things to each other and to their family. Furthermore, the persona mentions a “wrought-iron gate still open behind her,” which is a symbol for all the opportunities that the parents could have