Dawn Lundy Martin's Violent Rooms while not outright clear what she's referring to, leaves room for interpretation within the ambiguity. The adjectives used are not wholly visual but rather they are figurative. For instance when describing a thing that many had done before she says, "The wound is rupture. Blood-faced. Between sailing and anchor. No, between shipwreck and burial." Where the last part of that could either be a time or a place, or neither. Just some intangible construct of an existentially nihilist mind.
     As an entirety the poem evokes the image of either a birth or a rape, but it's probably neither; or it's one or both. The line "A rancor defines the split." Signifies a level of unwanted parting. "Rip into."? "That urgent flex peels off the steady layers." Possibly an undressing of clothes. "A girl, I say. Girl. Gu-erl. Quell." An attempt at maintaining self identity. And then the quell. A forced silence. The victim under assault. Or it could be something entirely different. Probably, yes. That's the beauty of poetry. I'm sure if I read it tomorrow it'll mean something else to me. If at this very moment it represents a rape room or an wanted child birth, then that's what it represents.
     This CAConrad chap. Traveling poet, what an interesting character. I wish I could have gotten a chance to hear him read yesterday. His existence is poetic. Eat, breath, sleep. A dedicated soul to his craft. Very respectable.

     "There are two kinds of women: day women and night women." The juxtaposition examining the qualities of night women and day women. The time of day the woman in the story exists in is not arbitrary but influenced by the care she devotes towards her son. Her character develops over the span of her dislike for the time she has to spend at night,  to the ambivalent resignation "The night is the time I dread most in my life. Yet if I am to live, I must depend on it." This transcends the simple concept of time and really is an examination of her means of survival as she deceives her son.
     Throughout the nightly "grind" she's hyper aware of her son. She never alludes to performance anxiety but I imagine it's a persistent issue for her. "Somehow in the night, he always calls me in whispers. I hear the buzz of his transistor radio. It is shaped like a can of cola. One of my suitors gave it to to him to plug into his ears so he can stay asleep while Mommy works." Demonstrates her auditory attention directing towards her son. And "The stars slowly slip away form the hole in the roof as the doctor sinks deeper and deeper beneath my body. He throbs and pants. I cover his mouth to keep him from screaming." shows the actions she takes during coitus to maintain her sons ignorance. What further actions would she be willing to take?
     Whatever the outcome, there doesn't appear to be any end in sight. She's internally concocted fabrications for the boy, preparing to tell him that any one of her nightly clients is the poor kids father, should he discover them. It's a twisted amalgamation of Russian roulette and Schrödinger's Cat in which the kid's image of his father(who he was told died) will be determined by whether or not he peaks behind the curtain on any given night. Pick your poison.

     The Girl With the Blackened Eye is a powerful piece of short writing. Whether or not it's true, based on true events or fictitious the heart wrenching story of a teenage girl abducted and rapped is chilling. The types of details the author Joyce Carol Oates vividly describes not only being rapped but having to witness as her abductor violently rapes other women. You get a sense that she no longer attaches herself to this world, she says "you are there, and not-there." Her body may have been present, but the essence of what made her, "her" was shelled away. 

     Her inability to escape when she had the opportunity really shows you how much her psyche was affected over this eight day period of time. That coupled with her inability to communicate her past to her current family shows that she masterfully compartmentalized her experiences.

     Details and imagery that are incorporated into a story that are pulled from real life tend to add another layer of immersion throughout the story. Things that are so real that they can't possibly be made up trick your mind into whole heartedly accepting the story.