When I was at school, 'each peach pear plum' was a picking rhyme, an alternative to 'eeny-meeny-myah-mo' and 'one potato two potato.' (The fruits are ordered differently in order to play on the 'pear/pair' homonym and pointedly leave out the 'pair' at the end.)
Adults, here, pick partners in the same arbitrary way that children might pick playmates. If the 'floozies' can 'afford to be choosy' the implication is that the narrator can't; instead, she hopes to be chosen, but is metaphorically 'knocked down' by her love interest and withdraws. The 'golden' rush of their initial connection is replaced by 'gray' and 'blue'. The image of blood running from meat in 'Do I run rare?' echoes that of water running from snow, but the fact that it's a question means she's not admitting to having been heartbroken... maybe she was and doesn't want to admit it because to the guy and the 'floozies' the whole dating process is just a picking game, where people are selected or discarded at random. She might have blood where they only have water.
When I was at school, 'each peach pear plum' was a picking rhyme, an alternative to 'eeny-meeny-myah-mo' and 'one potato two potato.' (The fruits are ordered differently in order to play on the 'pear/pair' homonym and pointedly leave out the 'pair' at the end.)
Adults, here, pick partners in the same arbitrary way that children might pick playmates. If the 'floozies' can 'afford to be choosy' the implication is that the narrator can't; instead, she hopes to be chosen, but is metaphorically 'knocked down' by her love interest and withdraws. The 'golden' rush of their initial connection is replaced by 'gray' and 'blue'. The image of blood running from meat in 'Do I run rare?' echoes that of water running from snow, but the fact that it's a question means she's not admitting to having been heartbroken... maybe she was and doesn't want to admit it because to the guy and the 'floozies' the whole dating process is just a picking game, where people are selected or discarded at random. She might have blood where they only have water.
Fantastic interpretation! I love how you explain the "adults pick partners arbitrarily" thing.
Fantastic interpretation! I love how you explain the "adults pick partners arbitrarily" thing.