The Roman Room Method

1 Minute Read Time

A room with white walls and stone floors. On the back wall is two archways, behind which sits a bench, a stool, and a bucket. On the right wall is a niche. — Photo by Lynn Van den Broeck on Unsplash

I tell my father about the mnemonic techniques 
of Greek and Roman orators—

They’d construct palaces in their minds, 
affixing—to this archway, to that dome—
portions of speeches they hoped
to remember.

He needs a trick to remind him
my mom has started chemotherapy.

This is why she looks pale right now. 
This is why her hair is falling out.

I need a room I can tell him to visualize—
a wall with a brass hook
where he can hang this fact 
like a coat.

Or is it better to let our conversation 
fall out of his head,
tangling with the whorls
of my mother’s hair on the floor?

Carolina Hotchandani

is a Goodrich Assistant Professor of English at the University of Nebraska Omaha. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in AGNI, Alaska Quarterly Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, The Journal, Missouri Review (poem of the week), New Ohio Review, Plume, Prairie Schooner, and West Branch. She lives in Omaha with her husband and daughter.

Return to top of page

Search