Primacy v. Recency

I write in my letter to her,
"How is Nathan?" and then
"How are you?"
I am the child who
eats the red Skittles last
because they are the best
So when I ask my
sometimes sister
often pen pal
how she is
last in the list
of people I inquire after
she is supposed to realize
that she is
important to me
I think she is
the best.

On her next visit
during a weekendbirthdayholiday
she teases me for caring more about
the well-being of her boyfriend
than for her
She has misunderstood
he was a green Skittle
tolerated to make the red one sweeter
But his position in the list
before her
has given her the wrong impression
about my
priorities.

Now she is gone
it is too late for me
to tell her that
I finally understand
She taught me to say,
"our dad"
But what she really wanted
was to be his first and last thought
the primacy and the recency
rolled into one
To be the apparent afterthought
of his always last thought
must have made her feel
insignificant.

According to Eddinghaus
when given a sequence
people tend to remember
the last thing in the list first
This is known in the field of psychology
as the recency effect
The items in the middle of the list
are usually forgotten
But the items at the beginning
are recalled
at last
in what is known as
the primacy effect.