The yellows momentarily mesh

My second speaker poem is Bringing My Son to the Police Station to be Fingerprinted by Shoshauna Shy, which you can find here.

Besides the title and the mention of going through Weapons Check, there is abcolutely nothing to tell the reader what is occuring in this poem. The mother chooses to block out the whole experience because she is upset and does so by noticing trivial aspects of her outfit. If this poem was from the point of view of the son, the reader might hear about his fear, his remorse, or perhaps his arrogance and lack of remorse.

The mother's close attention to detail of each color (which are all pretty, calm pastels) and element of her clothing characterizes her as a perfect, superficial housewife-type. She refuses to accept her son's arrest or wrongdoing because it makes him imperfect. The fact that she gets "slightly queasy" upon noticing that the yellows of her blouse and skirt do not match, but remains indifferent to her son and bringing him to the police office shows the reader how disillusioned she is.

When she does mention the police office, she capitalizes "Weapons Check" to signal its importance, yet only speaks of it in passing. Instead she focuses on how the "yellows momentarily mesh" and make her feel better, resolving the conflict of the two items of clothing but not that of her repressed issues with her son. The sunny yellows create a veil of ignorance and false happiness so she does not have to acknowledge her son's delinquence. There is very little action in this poem, but the speaker and her point of view make it affecting and significant all the same.