When I read Briar Rose there were a couple of motifs that I noticed that came up more than once. Three of them that came up in Briar Rose only were eyes burnt out by cigarettes, prison, and also scoured tounges. I think they are grotesque imagery. Two more that were in both the Gold Key and Briar Rose were daddy and Presto. Im not sure why she uses those words.
To me the Gold Key foreshadows that there is going to be alot of poems where there is a boy looking for something, in most cases it is a girl. The reason that I think this is because Sexton talks about a boy who finds something then goes on to find something else. Also it could foreshadow curisoity in the characters to come, because the boy she is writing about seem curiois because he would find something and look for something else.