Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Dorianne Laux’s “The Line” captures a poignant and unsettling snapshot of motherhood in the modern era, blending the mundane with the deeply existential. Through vivid imagery and a reflective tone, the poem explores themes of maternal anxiety, societal fears, and the fragile hope for a better future.

The poem opens with a vivid depiction of a department store scene, where a mother juggles multiple children while trying to navigate the practicalities of filling out a form. Laux’s use of detail—the baby balanced on one hip, the clipboard teetering above the stroller—conveys the physical and emotional labor of motherhood. The mother’s braided, beaded children, described as being “in various stages of crankiness,” symbolize not only the diversity of their needs but also the challenges of parenting in a world fraught with demands.

The speaker’s attention shifts to a woman behind her who speaks to her children in Chinese, further emphasizing the universality of maternal care across cultural boundaries. The image of delicate hands “tinted yellow beneath the brown” highlights both individuality and shared humanity. The act of pointing to the forms and offering to watch the children subtly underscores a theme of solidarity among mothers, united by their shared vulnerability and love.

Amid these ordinary interactions, the poem’s central tension emerges: the purpose of the line is to have children fingerprinted, their unique identities recorded “so if they’re stolen we’ll have this card to show.” This revelation transforms the seemingly mundane scene into a chilling commentary on parental fears in the twentieth century. The process of fingerprinting—meant to safeguard children in the event of abduction or harm—represents both an attempt to control the uncontrollable and a grim acknowledgment of a world where such measures are deemed necessary.

The speaker’s moment of checking her daughter’s eyes—described as a color for which “there is no word”—introduces a tender yet haunting meditation on the uniqueness of each child. This act of looking closely, of trying to name the inexpressible, mirrors the broader desire to preserve and protect what is most precious. Yet it also underscores the limits of human effort: no card, no fingerprint, can fully encapsulate the complexity of a child or safeguard them from harm.

Laux juxtaposes this intimacy with the collective experience of the line. The mothers, united in their shared purpose, are simultaneously haunted by unspoken fears: “coffins the size of dresser drawers,” “the dragging of rivers.” These stark images evoke the devastating realities that drive the act of fingerprinting, laying bare the tension between hope and dread. The mothers promise their children trips to the park and rides on plastic ponies, small gestures of normalcy that momentarily distract from the grim undercurrent of their task.

The poem culminates in a reflection on the era’s paradoxes: the mothers are described as “the mothers of the twentieth century,” a phrase that captures both their historical moment and their archetypal role as protectors. They participate in this ritual—allowing strangers to press their children’s “delicate whorls” into ink—because they must, because the new world demands it. The act of cleaning the ink-stained hands with “folded towelettes” becomes a poignant metaphor for their attempts to erase the traces of fear and restore innocence, even as they know the stain lingers in less visible ways.

Laux closes with an image of the children sitting on stools and smiling, “as if nothing were wrong in the new world. As if the future were theirs.” This final line encapsulates the poem’s bittersweet tone: the children’s untroubled smiles contrast sharply with the mothers’ underlying anxiety. It is a fragile, necessary hope, one that allows the mothers to move forward despite the uncertainties and dangers they face.

In “The Line,” Laux masterfully weaves together the personal and the societal, capturing the intimate moments of maternal care while addressing the broader fears of a modern world. The poem’s detailed imagery and layered reflections reveal the tension between love and loss, protection and vulnerability, and the enduring hope that sustains families despite the shadows of the future.

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