THE BODY IS A DOOR by Mary Ann Honaker

 


THE BODY IS A DOOR

 

No one wants to stand on death's cliff edge. A 

sky the color of threat, and not a child 


outside. I am standing on the edge of. 

Thank you, Thank you, I constantly say.


*


The number of sparrows in the tree: six. 

The graupel pellets in the grass: she knows, 


the Goddess. Her breath is clean of burning. You're 

close to the edge when spirits wake you. You're not 


of this world or the next; you press on the 

membrane; footsteps and a shadowy shape


crossing the hall. This doesn't mean She's 

abandoned you. Forget what you learned 


in Sunday school. She walks down the street to 

your house, the graupel clicks together to make 


a sound like billiard balls. Then She walks by. 


*


She's still here. Think of a small child's drawing:


sticks and circles for mom and dad, and half 

that size, herself. Maybe a dog along 


the grass, that green line. A triangle on a 

rectangle. The sun in the corner fold:


that's the Goddess. Her presence is cutting 

the grass away from the sky. Now and then, 


you'll spot Her through an opening, 

in the supermarket, in the no-where 


of the night sky. In the winter cold, do 

you see the stars rippling as a stream? You 


*


could quiet yourself minuscule, then open

that door and step in. Comets. Lilies. Where 


you end up is the fever of your soul. Do 

you feel the selves of your past crowding you? 


Is the breeze a rose petal? You carry 

either a clear stone or fire in your 


pocket, and room for all of your recent dead. 

Moon and sun on either side of your chest. There's 


no pill you can take for that, and also no 

known cure. My dead cat's hair is in my locket,


which falls against my breastbone. I'm mourning for 

the past, taped to it with duct tape. Is that 


a door? A garden gate? My locket is hinged, 

so I can add a trinket. It's hanging 


with the weight of seven worlds, pulling on 

my neck-stem, like a peony I bend, a 


long way from resolution. Is your chain 

the weight of a tear or the ocean? That 


*


was a rude question. In the screaming greens 

of spring, your heart froths, your nose opens, your 


eyes dilate. Dark loam is in your throat. 

Anything could grow there. Thistle, rose and 


thorn, daisy for foretelling love, or the 

purple clover I loved, before I was dead,


or alone in that membrane, thrust inside 

it, speaking the language of mountains. You 


haven't found the door yet, but you don't 

give up. You watch the trees closely, you


observe branch from branch to leaf. When you hear 

the tree breathing, you'll be ready. Of them 


who don't search, don't worry. The tree's breathing. 

The sky's diamond, the earth's star: that's you.


*


Searching for a way in, for a moment, must 

compel you to give all that you have. 


Of time. Of insistence. Of love. Of a 

single green stem. It blows open a hole 


in your being, finding the door. They 

may try to distract you with tasks. You can 


Oneness into your ironing press, 

peel potatoes with the Goddess, it's in their 


records. So much is in the gray. 

His broad walk, her dark strawberry lips. 


These succulents can also be doors to 

shedding self like a worn out t-shirt, if 


you hear the ping of the Goddess in each. You 

won't get anywhere pushing the door open--


it sticks. It's swollen in the heat when 

summer's on, and your ego rises; you 


inflate like a life raft; the door won't open. 


*


Spheres of crisp, opaque rime, the graupel will 


melt in your palm. It will sting a bit. We 

haven't forgotten fall, the hues you find 


under your feet, the distinct smell of them 

as each leaf dries, some flat and some folded. 


One day a door will open: Come inside.

Some days none will, the world won't let you in.


*



I talk of doors, but haven't seen what 

I speak of in a long time. They change shape, 


they change season, they change shoreline or trees. I 

look everyday, with words and what they mean. 


My pocket is empty; I've given what 

I had. Sun settles in the deep cut 


of valley. She expands upward, releases shape. 

I try to step into whatever is, 


but today is very cold. I have made

more coffee. I am part, I am the whole. 


I repeat what I know, but the words fall by 

the couch, lay on the floor. Nothing's opening. 


*


I scrape out the insides of the word “I.” 

With a knife, I cut the ground from the word “mean.” 


I have my flesh but nothing besides. 

I need to look to the comfort of the 


body. I must find the door in my heart.



This poem is a golden shovel using Maggie Smith's “Heart,” from Good Bones.


© Mary Ann Honaker




Mary Ann Honaker is the author of Becoming Persephone (Third Lung Press, 2019), and Whichever Way the Moon (Main Street Rag, 2023).  Her poems have appeared in Bear Review, JMWW, Juked, Little Patuxent Review, Rattle.com, Solstice, Sweet Tree Review, and elsewhere. She currently lives in Beckley, West Virginia.


 



Comments

  1. So much interesting imagery.

    “Her presence is cutting
    the grass away from the sky”

    “In the winter cold, do
    you see the stars rippling as a stream? You
    could quiet your minuscule”

    ReplyDelete

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