In The Open (p63) Roberson uses the homophones "razed" and "raised" on the first page. The first part of the poem seems to be about the racial desegregation of public schools and the white flight that occurred during the 1960s and 1970s in the United States. By using homophones Roberson leads the reader to compare the two phrases in which the words occur and also to switch their places, allowing for a double meaning.
"Their buildings razed. They ghosts
Their color that haze of plaster dust"
This line deals with the white institution ("building") of racism being demolished or destroyed.
"A village packing up and leaving raises you with
the catch"
As African American families moved into all white neighborhoods, the white families would leave, effectively re-segregating the neighborhood. I can imagine that moving into a mixed neighborhood with the intention of raising children together without racism, only to have the racism re-established in such a passive-aggressive manner would be destructive (razing).
Idyll (p87) is a cynical piece about how you can have your idea of perfection as long as you don't look too closely. It reminds me of "The Lady's Dressing Room" by Jonathen Swift, where after he sees his mistress' makeup, she is no longer attractive. Swift then communicates that you shouldn't look too closely at something you find beautiful. Roberson uses the same warning, don't look too closely, in the setting of a city and comments on the effect of having large numbers of people believing that the idyll exists:
" the more people
the more lidded certain sound"
indicating that the more people there are, the facts or "numbers" are more muffled or hidden.
Seclusion from the outside world is the theme of Someone Reaching Through A Window. In the first few stanzas Roberson describes someone shutting their window and contrasts how "the open expansiveness of arms" is not a welcoming gesture, but a body position used to shut out the rest of the world:
"the reach for not being
there open to the street"
He then proceeds to describe someone hiding under a blanket, cringing and in a panic. Throughout the poem Roberson focuses on the process of isolation:
"the tucking out from inside; light
nerve line and impulse to hear
pulled in"
The person under the blanket seems to be overwhelmed and unable to handle the sensory input from the outside world.
I didn't notice any references in the poem to any outside ideas, so this poems seems to be about one of those people in a city and who are hiding from it at the same time.
