“Mothers” is composed of unrhymed free verse, organized in six stanzas of varying length. The poem has a first-person point of view. The speaker travels back and forth in memory, adopting an adult perspective in the beginning, followed by a childhood recollection, and returning once again to adulthood in the final lines. As the reader cycles through time with the speaker, the reader comes to understand the first moment the child really sees her mother as an individual, as well as “a beautiful lady” (Line 26).

The first stanza of “Mothers” comprises a single phrase setting a peaceful, ordinary scene. The speaker returns to pay a visit to her mother. The tone suggests two adults fondly greeting one another before settling into their own habits and concerns: They “kissed / exchanged pleasantries” (Lines 2-3) and retired to their “separate books” (Line 6). If there is any strife at all, it remains at a comfortable distance, the world’s hard edges wrapped up in the formal word choice of “unpleasantries” (Line 4).

In the second stanza, the speaker leaps back in time to a different home—a “three room / apartment on burns avenue” (Lines 9-10).