Encounter

In this poem Ruth Molloy wrote a fictitious account of her adult self running into her childhood self on Walnut Street in West Philadelphia and having a conversation. It is interesting because the poem speaks to how priorities and perspectives change as one ages from a child to an adult. The young Ruth asks the grown Ruth, "If X plus Y is zero, is X the same as Y?" and the older Ruth does not have time to be concerned with such useless grade school math problems. She tells young Ruth, "You’d be surprised my dear…at just how much it costs to live / And just how many time a day a baby likes to cry." Making a living and caring for children are all that is on the mind of grown Ruth. The two Ruths continue back and forth in a conversation that consists of each Ruth asking questions from her own life perspective. In her final lines Ruth Molloy reconciles the adult and the child within herself: "I spoke to her in anger, but my troubled eyes were a giveaway / Walking west on Walnut on that bright spring day / I prayed, ‘Don’t let her guess my name, and tell her X is Y!’" Although adult Ruth Molloy was burdened with all the cares and responsibilities of being grown up, she still accepted that it is worthwhile for young Ruth Molloy to be concerned with the pursuit of knowledge, even if that knowledge will not directly pertain to her survival as an adult.

"Encounter"

Walking west on Walnut Street,
I ran into a paradox.
No one there to warn me; what was there to say?
Myself-a weary housewife-met myself-a little girl in socks -
Coming home from school on a bright spring day.
"Excuse me, Mrs. Uhn," she said.
"Does ant take the ablative?
If X plus Y is zero, is X the same as Y?"
"You’d be surprised, my dear," I said, "at just how much it cost to live,
And just how many times a day a baby likes to cry."
"Did Ivanhoe regret his choice?
Was Magna Carta justified?"
I held her arm and shook her.
"Those things don’t matter now.
How many stiches can I take from four to five o’clock?"
I cried.
"How many cups of sugar will my future plans allow?"
I spoke to her in anger, but my troubled eyes were giveaway.
Yet innocent, unknowing, unrightfully, she passed by.
Walking west on Walnut on the bright spring day,
I prayed, "Don’t let her guess my name, and tell her X is Y!"