The poem
At her Junior High School graduation, she sings alone in front of the lot of us--
her voice soprano, surprising, almost a woman's. It is the Our Father in French,
the new language making her strange, out there, fully fledged and
ready for anything. Sitting together -- her separated mother and father -- we can
hear the racket of traffic shaking the main streets of Jersey City as she sings
Deliver us from evil, and I wonder can she see me in the dark here, years
from belief, on the edge of tears. It doesn't matter. She doesn't miss a beat, keeps
in time, in tune, while into our common silence I whisper, Sing, love, sing your heart out!
the word separation speaks to me - the girl sophisticated
beyond her years, her voice almost a woman's. The division between the girls is marked and how this poem
revs into life when the poet urges sing your heart out"
the divide seems momentaruliy to have dissolved The cry is an angry one, a voice, the dpoet's repressed and yearning for expression - a rejection of false and stale words that cannot express the poet's passion.