after Valerie Maynard (1995)
Inside this tired flesh, hard to please
or satisfy, there are doors beyond our counting.
Locked. No matter how many keys
we swallow – whether sacred hosts
or miracle pill – the angel of history turns
their face away, gives up no ghosts.
You claim there is no other life.
But through your ribcage I have seen the evidence,
my radiograph a woken knife
exposing hinterlands unmapped.
Puritan, reach out, with your stiff hand grasp
friendship’s purpose.
Release what is entrapped.
iv. 2025
