the key
How absurd it would be to spin these
noises out,
so serious that we call them poems,
if they couldn’t make a person smile.
Cheer or courage is what they were all
born in.
It’s what they’re trying to tell us,
miming like that.
It’s nature to the words,
and what they want us always to know,
even when it seems quite impossible to
do.
from
“The Cheer”
William
Meredith
Because once it’s
in there it’s needed
to have been
there all along—it’s right
and the night
is almost
always
successful
in unlocking
the door, is able to turn
the answer in
the other dir-
ection. That slid bolt, the gears
and her oils,
the teeth of the well-
worn key, each
Morse groove or dash
of her surfaced
edge—listen
we pat
ourselves in public
looking for
such keys, the envelope
pocket on the
hump of each
cheek, or deep
along the seam
in front, the
thigh, or up high,
breast pocket
empty, empty,
the locked
door the knock,
but before,
the coming up
of the hand,
wrist first, then the whole
arm, the hand
we write with,
the tap on the glass
or not, the wood
or not, tap, a
single knuckle first
then the urgent
fist because it’s please
open the door,
I’ve lost
my key
and the space
between
the ripple of
the noise and the listen…
steps down the
stairs, down
the hall,
and the slide
of the palm against it,
the door,
before the pinch
the click
the sound any
jockey is born
making, teeth,
cheek, tongue.
It’s been too
long. Far too long.
