I Go Back to May 1937 - Sharon Olds (poem)

Throughout the poem, the persona is revealed to be a part of the image although we are also given a sense of distance with which the persona is merely observing the scene. She "[sees] them standing at the formal gates" (her mother and father) but she never approaches them. We know this because description of sight is the only sense that she relates to. This aspect, coupled with her knowledge of their disturbing future, suggests that this is not the present tense but is actually a past event, a memory she is looking upon of perhaps a photo, a story once told or her own memory. She shows her knowledge of their future by her desire "to go up to them and say... you are going to do things you cannot imagine you would ever do." The persona, however, does not act upon the desire as she says she "[wants] to live" Therefore we are shown that if she disturbs this event, she would never have been born. This also shows that it is not possible for her to 'interrupt' the image as she is not physically a part of it. The poem shows that the persona is a part of the image but is merely looking upon it as the past, as a memory.