Perhaps every day
of our lives
is a hall
in a building
so tall, clouds obscure
the top floor.
And every poem
we encounter
is a hole in the wall there—
not a vandalism
or incompleteness,
or some emblem of disrepair,
but an aperture, a door
leading somewhere
we're not authorized to go—
or worse, a once-familiar interior
which we now fear is haunted
or condemned—
or worse-still, a one-way exit
emptying us out
god knows where
with an abruptness
the thrill of which
time can't account for
onto a dazzling street
we surely didn't
take to get here
and have never walked
before.
