2 December 2003 | Vol. 3, No. 4

The Little Room

by J. ROBERT SHULL

1.

Welcome to the little room.

You can bring a world in here,

spill an ocean or two

as you shove it through the door,

and all of it will fit, it will,

but the little room is still a little room.

2.

There's always a world or two

inside the little room.

Spinning around, and bumping about,

exploding, at times remaining intact,

or stuck on the wall with glue.

There are worlds enough and worlds enough

inside the little room.

3.

The living and the dead alike

share the little room.

4.

The ghost of some still lingering past

is born in the little room.

It paces up and down the hall.

It sticks its fingers in our food.

It sticks its fingers down our throats,

splatters milk until we choke.

It tangles itself in the boudoir sheets

and does what it has to do:

it worms into the genetic code

of the sperm and the egg of the two in the bed

and spews its unerasable stain

on the walls of the little room.

5.

And now's the time

the little room

breaks open.

The dining table in the kitchen,

chairs squeezed back against the wall.

The little room breaks open.

The chest-of-drawers stuffed

with everyone else's excess clothes,

the desk at which the child must sit

and sit and sit and sit and sit.

The low ceiling sags.

The little room breaks open.

6.

Bathroom after showers

humid as an Asian jungle,

the air goes thick up and down the hall,

strangles the child in the little room.

Now we see the low ceiling fall,

now the crumbling of the walls.

The little room breaks open.

7.

The little room is still a little room

when the little room breaks open.

It breaks into another little room,

thick air pushing the child against the walls.

8.

The child dreams in the little room.

The child dreams that the little room

breaks open. The child sits

and dreams. And the little room breaks open.

9.

The little room is still a little room.

The child dreams in little rooms.

A ghost cries, "Welcome, welcome, welcome,

welcome to the little room."