print previewback MARGARET GIBSON
Door
Morning sunlight, glass door,
dust—an even
film of it on the steep glass
which also
reflects and fills as does the eye
with forsythia and the subtle
greening just beginning
in the bare trees out there.
Out there. In here.
I want to believe that what is
is not separate—and yet
the illusion of boundaries
is solid. I knock on it, bring
a soft cloth, soap and water.
Now a bend in the backbone,
an arc of reach, gentle
pressure, polishing . . .
In a poem I wrote years back
the glass I wiped clean
and polished turned into
your body, Beloved,
into love cry and migrating birds
come home, on fire.
Now it is the dust on things,
and of things,
that calls, that woos, that whispers,
We are made to be seen through.
Yes. And we are made to shatter.
Made to smell the rain-rinsed air
rushing the door I am no other than
threshold, breath . . . 