Some are teethed on a silver spoon,
With the stars strung for a rattle;
The speaker kicks off the poem with an image of privileged children. The image of the "silver spoon" is an overt reference to money, as it is a commonly used phrase to indicate being born into generational wealth. The line "stars strung for a rattle," adds to this suggestion, while also linking these children to images of light and whiteness. The speaker begins with a description of these children and not his own life because the contrast is more effectively highlighted when it starts with their charmed lives and drops down, as opposed to the opposite.
They swathed my limbs in a sackcloth gown
On a night that was black as tar.
This phrase from the second stanza underscores the roughness of the speaker's upbringing. The image of the "sackcloth gown" allows the reader to visualize the rough texture of the fabric on the speaker's skin, showing how unsuitable it would be for a child's swaddle. The night being described as "black as tar" implies that the speaker is Black. At the same time, it subtly alludes to the use of the word tar as part of a racially charged insult. Like the first stanza, these lines reveal how the speaker grew up in a situation almost unimaginably worse than his wealthy white counterparts.
For I was born on Saturday—
"Bad time for planting a seed,"
Was all my father had to say,
And, "One mouth more to feed."
This stanza focuses exclusively on the speaker, quoting what his father said on the day of his birth. His father notes that he was born on an unlucky day and sourly comments that the speaker is just "one mouth more to feed." The bitterness in his father's tone shows that the speaker grew up in a household without much affection or love, being considered a burden from the moment he was born. It also suggests that his family's extreme poverty made it difficult for them to think about much else outside of immediate financial concerns. These lines are doubly sad in that they further demonstrate how the speaker had no control over the situation into which he was born.
