Elle--
I think the poet chose the word "shift" because it has multiple associations related to the rest of the poem:
shift - fidgeting in her chair
shift - a change of clothes
shifts - in time
shift - an article of clothing once for both sexes, now a kind of woman's dress
shift - a change of any kind--the girl will change clothes reverting to almost her old tomboy self (note "both boy and girl" in L9) ; but also she is just about to change from a tomboy into a young woman, signaled by the garter snake.
"garter snake" suggests:
-- a perhaps dated association with women's clothing
-- Eve & the serpent, departure from paradise, etc.
and leads to the mother's call.
All of these associations can be drawn by the reader from the words on the page. I think the poet had at least some of these and maybe more in mind, and wanted to leave the associations open to the reader.
For similar reasons, I believe the poet didn't want to pin down the girl to "tomboy". The poem includes: the girl, the tomboy, the incipient young woman, archetypal Eve, and probably, I think, the older woman being called back from her reminiscence.
--Woody
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