the key

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.