There’s a Door in This World
I don’t mean the patio door
to open at midnight,
admitting the dark air
which has been waiting under stars
like a dog scratching to be let in.
I mean an opening to some other
life nobody has any words for.
I roll the door open and stand barefoot,
unlighted, the breeze nosing in,
licking around my face and arms.
There may be doors, but yes,
I’m here now
and my work is to stand
where I am, minding my own
business which at the moment
includes the silhouette
the palm tree makes,
surmising where the dove is,
and the owl, what doors they are,
what door I may be.
Marjorie Saiser’s poems have been published in Prairie Schooner, Nimrod, RHINO, Rattle, Cimarron Review, Chattahoochee Review, PoetryMagazine.com, The Writer’s Almanac, and American Life in Poetry. She co-edited Times of Sorrow, Times of Grace, a collection of writing by women on the Great Plains, as well as Road Trip, which features interviews with writers. Saiser’s fifth full-length book is I Have Nothing to Say about Fire (The Backwaters Press, 2016). Her website is poetmarge.com.
Header photo of stars and palm tree silhouette by syahirhakim, courtesy Pixabay. Photo of Marjorie Saiser by Rex Walton.
