My brother squats in poison ivy.
-- Speaker (Line 3)

Importance: This is one of the shorter sentences in the poem, delivered in a clear, straightforward way. The image is innately humorous, and it creates a vivid image of the speaker’s brother: impulsive, adventurous, and prone to getting into scrapes. The speaker does not deliver any emotional inflection in this line, but through its objectivity, the reader is able to get a wider and fuller sense of the speaker’s childhood world.

I know his left hand is on / the tobacco in his pants pocket
-- Speaker (Lines 9-10)

Importance: The present-tense phrase “I know” could be attributed to either the four-year-old speaker or the fifth-grade speaker who is able to see this small physical context clue and discern the reason for it. This speaks to a habitual rhythm that has become a part of the speaker’s understanding of the world around them. The grandfather’s death would...