Melissa Stein
You opened this door. Forced it back
on its hinges, drove in the thin wedge, saying
“I may need to enter at a moment’s notice.”
But don’t you know that metal has memory, alive
the way rising dough resists a probing finger,
or trodden grass springs up against the foot’s imprint.
Even flesh that retains the rare bloom of a bruise
soon lets it go. You keep these iron plates apart
so long they rust apart, flaking
into the slightest breeze, and still,
they remember what it means to rest
against each other, folded like wings.
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