Door’s Left Open When You Lose the Combination, the Key To Memory




Door’s Left Open When You Lose
the Combination: the Key to Memory

 After Long Silence

Politeness fades,…

Distinctions matter.  whether a goat’s
quiet face should be called noble
or indifferent.  the difference between a right rigor and pride.

                                                Jane Hirshfield

Forgive me if I repeat myself I think
too much it is a small fault the vault
door has been left
to fend for itself and it is not safe to say
anything that isn’t
in there hasn’t already been shuffled
through and given a value
suffocating like it is with the others:
                                documents of birth and death
                                of divorce
                                of marriage
                and then there’s odds and ends
                we’ve saved from
                our reincarnated lives:
                like that nude photo of a woman
                I used to know but I don’t
                speak about her and besides
                she’s dead any-
                way and her face has faded
                and what she once meant to me is lost
                                (but once recently
                                                my husband said (he had the key
                                                and the number combination
                                                memorized) honey that’s
                                                you, remember, and he took it
                                                out saying it had been laying
                                                all these years breathless and stale
                                                on top of the divorce decree
                                                                                (my once saucy: see! you can’t
                                                                                                own me
                                                                                                anymore)
                                                and the deed
                                                to some land we’d thought
                                                one day we’d go to die on)

                                                and I didn’t want to argue I know
                                                it wasn’t me and I was relieved
                                                when he tossed it back
                                                like a doll whose time of bravery
                                                in the dark has been spent on her children
                                                who are grown older and don’t need
                                                                the hands and feet sewn back on
                                                                year after year after loving year.

It’s a small fault I think, right?  Because didn’t we
talk just last night and didn’t we laugh
or cry or maybe it was both in the time
of day or night when something lost
has been discovered and we both put down everything
everything we were doing and rushed
to where it was and watch it
emerge, a spring baby, a lamb wasn’t it
yes, it must’ve been a lamb
it had to have been a lamb

but I’m not entirely
sure what it was, what was it
what was it we couldn’t wait to see

before the door closed completely?

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