The Heroes You Had as a Girl by Bronwen Wallace

The heroes you had as a girl

were always three grades ahead of you

taller than the boys in your own class

taller even than your brothers

and the layers of muscle ripening

under their thin shirts their jeans

made your palms itch

for something you didn't know how to explain

but wanted to    sitting with your girlfriends

in the hot dry grass

at the edge of the parking-lot

where all day Saturday they worked on their cars 

hunched over the greasy mysteries of their engines

occasionally raising their heads

their eyes flicking

to where you were included

as part of the landscape

Sundays they practiced more dangerous maneuvers

 till your eyes stung with the smell

of oil and burning rubber

and once they built arches of flaming

orange crates    you remember them spinning 

through the air when one car missed 

remember the screams that burned your throat 

before you realized no-one was hurt

your voices fluttering like foolish birds

on the wild currents of their laughter

and now twenty years later the hero

who drove that car returns as unexpectedly 

as the memory and just as out of place

you watch him study a display of bathroom fixtures

 in the hardware department of Simpson-Sears

he's grown fat and balding

and you think how easy it would be

to walk right over tap him

on the shoulders say hello

remember me    and if he didn't

you could laugh it off

at least you've kept your figure

that's not what stops you now

though something does

and as he walks away

you can feel the dry grass biting

the backs of your legs the uncomfortable

angle of your knees as you sat just so

practicing your own dangerous maneuvers

not being noticed    not noticing

the other girls    forgetting their names

the shapes of their faces reddening in the sun

(though you remember those burning arches

your throat tightening again around those foolish screams, 

you think you could explain it now

and that's what stops you

knowing you want nothing less

than for him to turn

peel off his shirt to show you

burn scars on his chest

and in the sullen landscape of his eyes

you want the faces of those girls

your own among them burning

brighter than any fire 

Requirement

What is the significance of this title? 

What is the main idea of this poem? 

What is the prevalent image of this poem? 

What two words are used effectively in the poem?