Won Exit

In one or two lives

I opened the door with the prize

only to find the prize was not worth the life.

I wanted the door.

Brave mahogany door, you be my fortune.

Teach me to understand the jungle cry

in your grain, the suffering circles

by which your tree wisdom is known.

I was superior with handles,

gentle with thresholds. Then, this.

Choices at morning hours I usually skip

but there is a little cash flow of beauty

where there is almost no more water.

And there is not room and light enough

to stand behind the second

and listen anymore -

I am going through the language of me now.

I am flipping open the dictionary of myself

with my tongue, as if that were possible,

to find your first word.

In the torture of a foyer

doorless for entering, I am entering none.

Elizabeth Metzger