Door
Olumide Manuel
I do not know what hand opens dreams to dawns,
but I wake into the cry of the alarm. Sometimes
I'm out before it mouths. Then the bathroom door,
back & forth, & out the front door. There's a door
in every greeting, so I greet my neighbours.
I greet the non-neighbours. I tip mama alakara
fifty naira, & when I'm not too winded away
in my morning woes, I toss the crumbs to strays—
I'm knocking doors that shouldn't necessarily
open back to me. Somehow, I prefer the doorlessness
of Keke Napep to taxi doors or bus doors.
It reminds me of the one true love that shattered me
in the most comfortable penance—How we fell in
& out each other with unedged thorns,
doors absentia, wilding our bodies in full speed.
Arrows of clean delight, limbs oxbowed in floral wings.
Love, in full dramatic flight & crash.
So in every morning swing towards school
in Keke Napep, I hold the rail with my two hands,
sitting at the lip of its seats, where the lack of door
breezes the traffic teeth, & myself in subtle anticipation
of every possible ruin of a body. I shadow the entrance
of my exit, imagining my death like a true lover of life.
from the journal BARRELHOUSE
READ ABOUT TODAY'S POEM
Share Share
Tweet Tweet
Forward Forward
color headshot of Catherine Barnett
A Conversation with Catherine Barnett

"My practice of keeping a notebook started in earnest after the unspeakable deaths of my two nieces in a plane crash. To try to help my sister through, I flew out West to be with her every few weeks, and while she did yoga, I’d go to a café and write whatever I didn’t want to forget from the day before. I think my notebook is a bulwark against loss."

via MCSWEENEY'S
READ ALL TODAY'S HEADLINES
Cover of Aaron McCollugh's new book, Salms
What Sparks Poetry:
Aaron McCollough on "Not at Duino”

"I am increasingly persuaded that American Christianity’s embrace of Donald Trump is simply the latest expression of a terrific counter-scandal, effectively another, much more gradual transvaluation of values, whereby the dominant American secular and religious visions have aligned themselves with a cult of progress, the technocratic human image for which power can only mean domination, exploitation, and mastery. The key joke of this era is the one where the man puts a gun to his head, and when his wife starts laughing says to her, 'What’s so funny? You’re next!'"
READ THIS WEEK'S ISSUE
donate
View in browser

You have received this email because you submitted your email address at www.poems.com. 
If you would like to unsubscribe please click here.

© 2024 Poetry Daily, Poetry Daily, MS 3E4, 4400 University Dr., Fairfax, VA 22030

Design by the Binding Agency