The poem is more broadly about the struggle of the speaker to separate from her mother and be born as an individual, and of course, about the same conflict confronted by all mothers and daughters throughout time.

The hardest part of jury duty for me was being forbidden to talk about the trial until after our verdict. Writing poems months later helped restore the voice that had been silenced. —Kathleen McClung

Sometimes we rely on poetry as a sort of goad—to bear witness, expose evil or hypocrisy in others, or expose ourselves to ourselves.

In these divided times I am grateful for poems like this to remind us of good things we may have taken for granted before—like just “getting” to sit in an uncomfortable folding chair in a school auditorium—and of the experiences many of us have in common.