A woman recalls a childhood with no play, only chores handed out each morning by a mother who belonged to a judgmental community. Bad things were read as punishment for small failures, and the poem says plainly that "the Lord is good," a line that sounds more like a rule than a comfort.
The main scene is her recovery from eye surgery. She must lie face down, barely allowed to look at anything but the floor, and she compares herself to a slug with retractable eyestalks, a wry, slightly rueful image. Her husband sets up a laptop so she can look at pictures of the sky, which finally lets her sleep a little. Then comes the dream: she crosses dark fields and forests on tall stilts, with the kitchens of her childhood wobbling beneath her.
The tone is quiet and tender, with some dry humor. The ending suggests she is rising above her past, though it still sits uneasily just below her.