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A few weeks ago I attended a poetry writing workshop with our Louisiana state poet laureate, Ava Leavell Haymon. I posted about one of the exercises here. The second exercise she led us through began with an image. We were to remember a room, kitchen or bedroom. Then we drew it, recognizing that this was a prompt for writing and no great work of art.
I thought of my daughters’ bedroom, the one two of them shared growing up. The room was small. My husband had built a bunk bed for them. He is a good carpenter, but he doesn’t make anything halfway. This bed filled up the small room. In fact, when we moved, we left the bed. We could not get it out of the room.
Bunk Bed Fills the Room
That is the bedroom where
I looked at the mess,
sheets unmade,
the angry child
red with fury.Her bunk bed filled the small space.
No room for my approval.I could only see
the mess,
the wild squealing.I forgot to look
under the sheets,
under the pile of toys,
under the dirty clothes
to see her child-heart.–Margaret Simon
Reflections on the Teche 