“Fifth Grade Autobiography” is the speaker’s reflection on both a picture taken when they were four as well as a representation of a slightly older version of the speaker as a fifth grader. As a result, the poem begins with a meditation on the passing of time summed up in the final lines of the poem: “He smelled of lemons. He’s died— / but I remember his hands” (Lines 21-22). The poem is written in the present tense to emphasize the immediacy of the memories brought on by the photograph, but this is not the present tense of the adult speaker; it is the present tense of their younger, fifth grade self.

The most interesting shift in this poem, in terms of time, occurs in Stanza 3, when the speaker introduces an additional time frame. Before this shift, readers must distinguish between the fifth-grade speaker and the four-year-old speaker on the day of the fishing trip. Now, readers accompany the speaker on a memory from the day before, during a ride on horseback. The contrast between the brother, who “rode his first horse, alone” (Line 18) and the speaker, who “was strapped in a basket / behind my grandfather” (Lines 19-20) explains both the reason for the four-year-old’s jealousy toward their brother and establishes his position as the older sibling.