You think of this work I do
(when you think of it at all)
as the opening
of petals, or Veins.
No matter how many times
I tell you otherwise.
No matter how many years
I’ve been at it.
If it were the opening
of petals,
I’d have long ago
turned to fruit,
fallen to the ground,
rooted as seed,
regrown.
If it were the opening
of veins? How red
would your hands be if
every time you touched one
of these you then
chose to just wait
for the next one?
This isn’t as easy
as simply blooming
or bleeding —
it’s opening, sure,
but more like cracking
a safe or picking
a lock and then pulling
a Door until it swings wide.
Inside,
maybe flowers, maybe
buckets of brimful red;
you can have those
as I live
for the cracking, the picking;
for the sound (my God, the sound!)
of moving doors.