Came Rooms

How prescient that first room,
The one where under the bed
Proved private the light,
Where flashlight and finger puppet dolls or toy soldiers
Became all that was needed.

Came…

The room with desk,
Where locked door
Gave entrance to video games
While parents assumed child’s study time.

Came…

SATs where drawn curtains,
No boom box,
Only silence
And the study focus
Made the room
.
Came…

The dorm room
With beer-can-crushing-to-the-head feminist roommate
Making for final exam hell,
Where stolen passions
With fraternity/sorority queen/king fantasy
Made eating
A non sequitur.

Came…

The office walls
Enclosing a room for fortune
Made eventually corrupt
With drawn curtains.

Came…

Marriage’s bed-room,
That place where all became prescient again,
Where a child would validate a wife’s existence
While with loving acceptance
A husband’s duty would be carried out.

Came…

Came…

The rooms never stopped,
Some whose final architecture,
That of nursing home green,
Others of palm-frond-shack freedom
Or the Soho 3-story condo sanctuary.
All rooms to reflect in.

Rooms unknown,
Until they’re not.

Forever a four-wall measure.
The capsule.
The coffin.
Chosen destiny.
One way…
Or another.

Prepare…

For most…

Rooms come, but never disappear—completely.