Let Us In

The door refuses to open. Unless it's delivered a new knob it'll continue to stick itself to the frame. We send in negotiators who promise only thin people will try to enter and offer new paint and lacquer as rewards. Through megaphones we yell that we have to get inside or the gypsies will steal our children, angels won't give us their wings, babies will rule over adults, tentacles will grab our bodies, the national debt will continue to go up through the roof. The door explains that our home is just an illusion. The house is made of death row dreams, the windows show only executioners. If we look through our cage we'll see the poetry we've scattered into the world being injected with poison. No, no, no, we moan. If we push our shoulder against it hard enough the new lives will eliminate the old. The door asks for reinforcements, the sofas and tables line up behind it, the floor and ceiling merge, obstructions turn everything we know into a massive stone. We have no sword to pull out of it.