Wow, not quite sure not to make of this one... I'm not really getting any central meaning here (not necessarily a bad thing), just a series of incredible and apparently unconnected visuals, although the "rented nights" of the second stanza suggest a link to the hotel of the first stanza.

I love the way the somewhat distressing imagery of the second stanza contrasts with the (superficially) joyful image of the circus in the third, although I'm not sure how the third stanza fits with the rest of the poem (if it is even supposed to). The ending is just awesome, I don't entirely understand the significance of the umbrellas but honestly I don't care... this is one of those poems that I just know like, but have no idea why.

This is obtusely magnificent
the different array of words and metaphors is amazing
i still havent worked it out

maybe dreams of ununderstood futures???
or maybe just as simple as a day at the circus???

youll have to tell me the anticipation is killing me (HAHHAHAHA)

nice piece

They're all linked by adolescence. The boy and his ever-present duty to his parents, his attempt at moving away, the girl wailing her young age away, which registers in the narrator as reminiscent of her own feelings, though they are far away from her, just as plastic forks are removed from silverware. They stab at her--no lasting damage, but an empathy. And growing up, which is more fully explored in the last stanza, which I feel is most important, though it wouldn't function as well without the first two stanzas. I could really go into it on the last stanza, but I'm not sure you want a point-by-point breakdown. I'll say that all that leaking is a metaphor for emotional investment, *feeling* something and showing it. The narrator wants desperately to grow up, and there's this implication of a bad relationship with her father. The only way she can think of is to "invest in an umbrella", which has that connotation of shelter, and control of the water, not resorting to displays of emotion to validate them. This is, I feel, one of the aspects of maturing: detaching, showing responsibility. I suppose I was going for that. *takes breath*

Thanks for your comment.

I will direct you to look down, haha. I responded to ~ExplodingTuesday's comment at length. But you can really take whatever meaning you want from this. Thank you.

Thanks for explaining a few things, you're absolutely right to say that I didn't want a complete play-by-play report, but it's good to get the main points that I'd missed. I've really enjoyed re-reading the poem with your comments in mind, it's definitely helped me to appreciate this work more. For a literature student, I'm pretty dense when it comes to picking up on metaphors, which is probably why the mataphors in my own poems are as heavy-handed as security at a music festival. Anyway, thanks for clarifying, and thanks for this beautiful work!

i read your comment/explanation to ~ExplodingTuesday, so i will not really touch so much on analysis here as the image that keeps coming back to me of the "dead leaves on bedspreads, and fading into sleep". this line brings to mind an old mansion, an old house, probably Victorian, with broken windows through which the leaves blow in in the fall to cover the bedspreads with dry, romantic dead leaves. why are dead leaves romantic?

i suppose they are romantic because of the association to raking them together as children to jump in and to listen to as they crunch underfoot down the sidewalk. and yet they are also dead, an allusion to the romanticism of days gone by and history.

this is, of course, completely unrelated perhaps to your theme(s) that you ellaborated on previously, but i wanted to offer my sleep-deprived interpretation of you beautiful image you brought to my mind.

I enjoyed your interpretation. It was lovely. Thank you, you're quite brilliant when you're sleep-deprived.

everything makes so much more sense when sleepy! you're welcome

I love this kind of poetry. Great imagery. I´m still experimenting with different styles, and it is just recently I bumped into the numbered ones, which I enjoy immensly. Is it a specific writing structure that you´re following, or did you come up with it yourself? Sorry if I sound like a n00b, but I´m too curious not to ask. *smiles* I don´t have much to add, except that I love your work. Thanks for sharing it.

/Faerie

--
To be nobody-but-yourself -- in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else -- means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting. /ee.cummings

No specific structure. It's open, and I just decided that the three sections fit together. That's how they were when I first jotted the idea down, with the numbering, so it was sort of natural. Thank you for the comment! I'm glad you enjoyed.