Birth

Throughout the poem are subtle images that you could say represent babies and birth. It's all layered in very discreetly (of course), but you can totally tease it out of the language. This layer in the language could be interpreted as a reference to the way women were expected to just raise babies, or it could be a reference to how women, themselves, are developing in terms of their place in society. There's a revolution jumping off, baby.

• Lines 1-3: The poem kicks off with the lines "Overnight, very / Whitely, discreetly, / Very quietly." If you felt like it, you could say that this image represents the moment of conception. While it's talking about mushrooms rising from the earth on one level, it could also be describing a sperm swimming its way towards an ovum, a.k.a. an egg. 
• Lines 4-6: The second stanza could be seen as describing the fetus growing in the womb. We get this idea from the phrase, "Take hold on the loam." Loam is a particularly fertile type of soil, so like the female uterus it's designed to nurture growth. The phrase "Acquire the air" might describe the way a fetus breathes through its mother. 
• Lines 10-13: We get a couple of images spread over these three stanzas that could definitely add up to paint a picture of a fetus developing in a uterus. First we have "soft fists," a description that definitely applies to any fetus's hands. Many a mother has felt these fists as her baby struggles in her womb. And even though these fists are soft, they can definitely feel like "hammers" and "rams" to the mother. 
• Lines 15-16: We also hear the description "Earless and eyeless / Perfectly voiceless," which could describe a fetus in an early stage of development. Yup, it takes a while for all these things to develop. 
• Lines 17-18: It's kind of hard to miss the birth imagery in the lines "Widen the crannies, / Shoulder through holes." It could definitely describe the way a baby exits its mother. Watch out world! These babies are coming out, and they're coming out now.