Give me a key. Any key
will do — long old time skeleton, short
cylinder for a chemical cabinet, an
ordinary key
with ordinary teeth. I will take it home,

I have a door that might be perfect for it.
Maybe your key will work,
maybe not.
If not, I’ll add it to the pile
that’s rising in the corner.

If by chance it does
turn, if the metal inside
slides aside and the handle moves,
I’ll let you know. I’ll wait for you
to come over and you can watch me go in —

crawling into the tiny chamber
I’ll bruise my head but it’ll be worth it.
You can hand me all the keys once I’m in,
even the one that did the trick,
and close the door

once that’s done. You can walk home
knowing I’m safe, a little headachy maybe
but secure behind the door that was closed for so long.
It’s all I’ve ever wanted —
my own place, somewhere

I fit; somewhere
I could nurse wounds
old and new until I was either
satisfied with them or they faded away.
(I do not expect them to fade away.)

You’ll get home and open the door to your place
with the key you always use. You’ll sit on the couch
and wonder how I’m doing in here, now that you’ve gone.
It’s like this: I’m not unhappy. I’m just another guy
wondering how I got here. I’m fine, all things considered.

sorting it out today, wondering
how much of what I have believed
about myself and who I am
is so much plastic wood

I fell in love early with “assume a virtue if you have it not”
assume a story if it works
assume a face that bears your chosen hue
assume there are those who won’t look past it

but somewhere in my true wood
there are knots and burrs
and I can’t veneer them enough
to leave no lumps in my surface

even when I dare to touch
the places I suspect they are
I can kid myself into the thought
that it’s my fingers that are suspect

but the ripples I refuse to feel
are there even if I cannot admit
that they are — all those years of covering
all those years of making it up as I went

and when the day comes to strip away
the last pieces of the fake decor
what will I say to myself when I look at the gnarling
the burls and the wormholes and the split grain?

will I say then i was a beautiful man
or will I despair and wail as I light a match
assume the peak of a pyre I should have built long ago
to watch myself fall in upon myself

instead of assuming that a life of wounds and scars
was less valuable than a life of obvious subterfuge?
will I tell myself I was dead either way
and let the wreckage show at last?