(when you think of it at all)
as the opening
of petals, or of veins,
no matter how many times
I tell you otherwise,
no matter that you know
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
every time you touched
one of my poems? Would you feel guilt
waiting to read
the next one?
Would you wash
your hands first?
This isn’t as easy
as simply blooming or bleeding.
It is indeed an opening
but one more like cracking a safe
or picking a lock
and then pulling a door
until it swings wide. Inside, maybe,
will be flowers, maybe buckets of brimful red.
You can have those.
I live for the cracking, the picking;
for the sound — my God, for the sound —
of those moving doors.
