Jonathan Totman

Room

After Terrance Hayes

Locked inside this sonnet are a thousand stories
I cannot tell. Where would you like to start? Here
in a pastel coloured, potted plant-filled room,
beneath the bookshelves and the unbroken
window, here in the soft amber glow, a voice
explodes. Everything we discuss is confidential.
I bend my mind to the business of witness.
A thought slips free of body like a body slips
free of time. This is your hour and you can
bring whatever you’d like to bring. If a truth
took up space. If a story had pressure.
Doors swing open, slam shut. Take your time.
Something’s happened out there, like confetti
or a killing. Something’s happening now.

Jonathan Totman's first collection, Night Shift, was published by Pindrop Press in 2020. His second collection, The Sessions, which draws in part on his work as a clinical psychologist, will be published later this year (also by Pindrop Press). Jonathan blogs on poetry and mental health here. 

Jonathan wrote the following about his poem:

'Room' will appear in my forthcoming collection, The Sessions, which explores experiences of therapy from the position of therapist and client. What began as a collection of lines and notes really took shape after an inspiring workshop on unrhymed sonnets led by Marvin Thompson. In the workshop, we looked at the work of Terrance Hayes, and the first line of 'Room' is actually a loose play on a line by Hayes ('I lock you in an American sonnet that is part prison'). So, thank you to Marvin Thompson and Terrance Hayes, and thank you to The Interpreter's House for giving the poem a home.