A POEM ABOUT A DOOR

6:59

6:59 and I’m still thinking about the door
On State Street with the flaking paint
On either side of the hinge there lies
Truth to be decided, lived and elided
Framed by eroded brick the living have glided
By going in to bed and out to work like flies
On a screen on a hot summer day the sainted
Odor of garbage in the alley behind the store
Syncopated by the afternoon guided
Down the sidewalk dead and in disguise
To the blistered surface the grain faint
Beneath old varnish and beyond, no more