Meredith Boe
In Rooms
When you were still on the other side,
in the fidelity of non-mothering,
before you conversed with women
from hundreds of years ago,
before the men acted like you died,
new mothers were always disappearing
into rooms. You’d all take turns
holding the baby, reading her a book,
and giving her a bottle.
But mother and child would eventually withdraw,
and you never knew what went on
in those rooms, places you weren’t allowed
or were too afraid to enter.
What happens in rooms
becomes a pattern like anything else.
Sharp corners, dust mites under the bed,
blue light singing from the humidifier,
photo of a beach on the wall.
All darkening, then illuminating,
then darkening again.
Seeing peripheral glimmers
that disappear once acknowledged;
hearing a faint sweeping, almost always,
like dried flowers rubbing together,
that doesn’t amount to anything.
A phantom phone vibration
or a baby crying, even when you see her
there, silent and asleep.
You begin to believe that your real self
is running around somewhere
naked, banging on strangers’ doors,
begging for someone to jam
the movie reel.
Mostly, you are alone.
You are like the pale blue dot,
something vague and meaningful
in the distance, defined by
the world, watching itself.
Return to Motherhood’s Duality Folio
Meredith Boe is a Pushcart Prize–nominated writer and author of the chapbook “What City” winner of Paper Nautilus’s Debut Chapbook Award. Her poetry, prose, and criticism have appeared in The Pickup, Passengers Journal, Newfound, Another Chicago Magazine, Chicago Reader, Chicago Review of Books, Mud Season Review, After Hours, and elsewhere, and she works as a freelance writer and copyeditor.