door


you are out of plumb
crooked       painted over and over
white always white a thick crust
of flaking frosting     on your surface
balance rectangles    a box within a box

you were once a tree      several trees
you were once a forest
 
   
and you were the wind and the    silence
and the light that comes silent and sudden
on the leaves           and you had birds
that didn’t know what it meant not
to sing               inside you


and I was like you once  and it might
have stayed            that singing 
inside me  if only    you had a lock


oh mother you were the door
and you let him
walk through