Getting Out

"Getting Out"
Cleopatra Mathis

I also liked this poem because it mimicked the separation in "Popular Mechanics," but it did not have such a horrible, graphic ending.  The imagery of prison is central to the first stanza--"inmates who beat the walls" (Mathis, page 896) suggests the unhappy, monotonous nature of the couple's marriage.  Both wanted they happiness they thought they found, yet they both felt trapped in the marriage.  "Escaped" and "laps" also suggest the repetitiveness of their actions and the inability to find changes and make things work.  Several similes in the poem demonstrate how the couple felt trapped and bored in the relationship.  The middle stanza was a bit harder to understand because it included images of his leaving and wanting to stay and work things out.  The last stanza includes the details of their matching, which was the problem in their marriage.  While they probably did not actually have matching hair and eyes, it is a metaphor for their similar personalities.  They were both so similar that the marriage just didn't work out.  The end of the poem was sad because they both still loved each other but felt the divorce was necessary for happiness.