In the evening, the speaker says, she feels that something is behind her. She startles and looks for it, feeling as if she's burning. She does not know how old she is. Things are different in the morning, when she faces an open book. This book is too close for her to feel comfortable or soothed reading it. She commands the reader to tell her her own age. The valleys stuff the speaker's ears with dense fog like cotton. She does not know her age, she repeats.
Then the speaker apologizes, saying that she doesn't mean to complain—everybody tells her that these things are her fault, anyway, and at the same time, nobody ever tells her anything. Again she demands to be told how old she is. Even the deepest divides begin to dissolve, like the ink of a tattoo fading. Again, she says, she doesn't know how old she is. Shadows lengthen as it grows dark, and then lights rise up again. The speaker then compares children to the moving, mounting lights, saying that they never stick around long enough. Again, she asks how old she is.
Stony, hard wings have gathered around the speaker, feathers piling upon feathers and hardening, with the claws lost. The speaker repeats that she doesn't know how old she is. She's becoming deaf, she says—birdsong seems to arrive in a drip, while waterfalls flow without being wiped away. She wonders out loud how old she is, and then demands to be told her age.
She says to let the evening begin—to let the moon rise in the sky and let the stars fly kites in the sky. What she wants is to know her age. One last time, she asks how old she is.
