Lost Combination
Posted: March 25th, 2016, 3:12 pm
Behold, I stand
at the door, and knock
and pry and curse and hammer
at you, your dead lead seams,
at your rivets fastened like truths
to cast ironies of steel will;
all Sunday in the upper room
I knell the sledge on the spikewedge;
it is a steeple-bell ringing-in
the light to darkness locked
like doubt within, so sparks
from my head wink like votives,
like angelfire, like prayer embered
in the tinder of your chambered heart;
O, I will not let you go
until you bless me, though
my grip numbs with the sting of the blow.
Lo,
your hinges tithe an open space,
a place for me to slip the bar
and wedge a breadth of air,
and there, at last, you are
open to me --
And now:
What within?
45-8-33
A scrap of parchment. Nothing
more. Nothing on it
but the key to open open doors
and pieces of a lock I have already
raped and made broken.
at the door, and knock
and pry and curse and hammer
at you, your dead lead seams,
at your rivets fastened like truths
to cast ironies of steel will;
all Sunday in the upper room
I knell the sledge on the spikewedge;
it is a steeple-bell ringing-in
the light to darkness locked
like doubt within, so sparks
from my head wink like votives,
like angelfire, like prayer embered
in the tinder of your chambered heart;
O, I will not let you go
until you bless me, though
my grip numbs with the sting of the blow.
Lo,
your hinges tithe an open space,
a place for me to slip the bar
and wedge a breadth of air,
and there, at last, you are
open to me --
And now:
What within?
45-8-33
A scrap of parchment. Nothing
more. Nothing on it
but the key to open open doors
and pieces of a lock I have already
raped and made broken.