Gliding open that storied steel door
with foraging eyes
I meet the usual suspects
sitting listless in cracked tupperware
sleeping in creased beeswax
wraps stacked like rubble
and I sigh deeply
then turn away
and regroup–
mustering the courage
to look once more
to tread the dreaded boundary
between routine and imagination
to fight or to flee
suspended in midair
and the ticking of clocks
until I remember the dashi
and miso lingering in the back
and the path opens up
just a crack
and the fragments of me
reassemble
and I swing that storied steel door open
with a hero’s chin.
Frank Gallivan is a gay/queer Buddhist poet raised, to his surprise, in Greenville, SC. After trying on various careers, he’s settled on writer/consultant/wanderer. Frank has lived in San Francisco, London, Rio de Janeiro, and a van somewhere in the US. He writes poetry to rediscover home.