Locks

 I had this thought

 ten years ago, now

 and I still have it

 from time to time:

 here, I’ll share it with you:

 we are all locks,

 unlocked by words,

 and you never know what they might unlock.

 

 We go about the day,

 washing dishes, tapping buttons,

 driving here and there,

 & never consider every second

 we balance on a knife edge

 between ourselves and something

 else—perhaps mild, perhaps severe.

 Here are the words, anyway, and

 Click!

 “Are you the next of kin,”

 “We regret to inform you,”

 “Congratulations!”

 “I’m sorry”—“but”

 “I’ve been trying to reach you”

 “We need to talk”

 Click!

 We come unlocked.

 It could happen anytime.

 We could do it to ourselves.

 The words could reflect the real

 or the imagined, without difference.

 Here is the combination:

 Click!

 You are laughing

 you are weeping, you are

 despondent, or overjoyed

 or pensive, melancholy, ecstatic—

 it took seconds.

 And so, you’re welcome:

 this friend now lives with you, too.

 I have unlocked the idea

 and let it roam about you.

 It will come up to you some night

 unbidden, recall to you itself—

 Click!

july 2021