Wrong Door
“Sometimes you just write your happy worm poem.”
-Kaveh Akbar
A door
nothin’ but four corners and a hinge
who ‘da thunk there’d be sucha thing
as a wrong door?
If a door can be wrong
and still be a door
what exactly makes one right?
In auditoriums and meeting rooms
full of like-minded people
I feel a bit like a door
A wrong one
I’m told to move my frame
to allow for someone
else to occupy the same space
I stand unlevel like the frame of a door
that settled in a old house
Forever left to scrape against the floor
and leave a small angled crack
at the top where hallway light
can leak through
I’ll never know these people
where they’re going
or where they’ve been
only what they say
as they pass through
Me
Nothin’ but four limbs and a couple cracks
my smile sits crooked
on rusty hinges
cracked open like a marble floor
bright white to blankness
If I was a door I’d be made of walnut
of
hard
wood
The dirt in my stomach
is filled with copper
like stolen pipes
and it forms knots in the sickly walnut wood
If I am a door
I open saloon style
split in the middle and
crooked
like my teeth
I smile
a wise crack spreads out
in the middle of my face
‘cause who ‘da thunk there’d be sucha thing
as a wrong door?