Daystar by Rita Dove

The situation and settign is set up for the reader to pity the lone mother vying for a space of her own. This poem sets up the situation of a woman who is completely unahppy and needs a break, where is her husband? The reader does not know, but can infer that she is a single mother. Totally kidding, I re-read line seventeen and realized Thomas was her husband, not a child. That puts a very different spin onto the text. Anyway, her life seems like it is not her own, and she is living for other people, i.e. caring for her child in the day and then satisfying her husband at night. The setting is really focused on the womans "nothing" she creates, which is described as a "palace", as it is her only escape from the unsatisfyingly misrable life she leads.