Dear Room

For another class, I was assigned to read an hour of contemporary poetry. I wasn't even sure what contemporary meant, to be honest, so I googled it and came across a large number of works. After boredly scrolling through for a few minutes, I found this poem, "Dear Room," by Hugo Williams. While I cannot say it had as profound an impact on me as Dr. Burton's post did on him, it has stuck with me for a few days now, seeping into the empty moments of my day with quiet reflection.

Are you still Chinese yellow?
Are your blinds still drawn
against prying eyes on the tops of buses?
How well I remember you,
perched beside a traffic-light
on the corner of Ladbroke Grove,
our tree-house lookout post,
shuddering and shaking all night
to the jamming of gears,
the headlights of cars
kerb-crawling the platform where we slept.
You held us suspended
halfway between heaven and earth that year.
We climbed up into the fork
of our lookout tree
and kicked the ladder away.

At first read, it almost seems that he's a youth describing a tree house, but on further reading, it's clear there's something else, and that this is almost a childish wish for a secret hideout. I understand this feeling. Even as adults, I think we often crave a place where we feel as if no can see us and that no one else knows about. There's a secret power in having a place that is all your own.

You were always more part of the street
than part of the house,
which only seemed to exist
as a doorway, a darkened hall,
an excited flight of stairs.
You were a half-floor,
tacked to the side of the building
as an afterthought, an extension of the landing
suspended in midair.
We tried not to walk too heavily.

"We tried not to walk too heavily." It's easy to take this literally - it's a poorly made room suspended as as "afterthought." But I think it's suggesting something deeper about the relationship - "we tried not to walk too heavily." We tried not to step on each other's toes. We tried to be careful. We tried to make it last.

Room, you taught us to live dangerously,
striped light coming through the blinds
and falling on the bed
where we lay too close to the edge.
Love in that half-world
was a seabird's egg, tapered and weighted
to roll only in that circle
which the ledge allowed was tenable.
If one of us lost balance
we would tumble into the street.

Something about the image here really satisfies your curiosity. He is creating a nest (the room) to keep them safe. We've all seen a bird's egg before and can easily see how fragile it is, and how protected. At this point the narrator almost seems desperate, like he no longer believes he can keep whatever it is they have alive, and is depending on the shelter of the room. He knew "we would tumble into the street."

I've heard she keeps you on
as a studio, somewhere to escape to
from new-found domesticity.
Once or twice a week - or is it less? -
she'll drop by to water the plants, sulk,
or do a little work
sorting through her old stuff for jumble sale.
I think of her, getting ready to go out,
meeting my gaze in the long mirror,
eyes already sheeted for departure.

He's jumping forward in time here. It sounds as if she's gotten married to someone else. The line where he remembers her "eyes already sheeted for departure" really jumps at me. They both know its ending, yet neither one of them is willing to pull the trigger.

Room, you must be wondering
what she is planning to do with you
now that everything is stripped bare, made good,
painted matt magnolia.
I've been wondering the same thing myself.
As she picks up an old blue dress
and holds it against herself for a moment,
I almost imagine her
staring at me across London,
daring me to blink.  
 

I think he's hoping for the impossible, intermingled with memories - that she still thinks about him, that she's holding onto the room because she can't let go either. His use of color here is interesting, too. In the beginning, the room is bright, a Chinese yellow. By this stanza, it's purple and she's wearing a blue dress, almost like the bruise of their relationship. How do you let go when the proof is everywhere?