Red Door, Rock City Garden of Lights

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Red Door, Rock City Garden of Lights

                     December 27, 2019

I didn’t mean to have you bump against
my back, lady in the light-up hat,
it's just that surely on the other side

the poems work, the words are opened wide
and spill their colors on a canvas known 
to need some softer hues, and a child on 

a bicycle is quoting Wilbur’s “A World
Without Objects is a Sensible Emptiness.” 
It was not my intent for you to spill 

your cocoa, but I would wager all 
my teacher’s salary that through that arch 
it’s all been taught, and there is time to start

pursuing answers to the bigger questions: 
Fresh-picked strawberries or watermelon? 
Lemonade on ice? A slice of cake?

And now you’re mumbling something, breathy, like 
the morning breeze that surely stirs the flowers
in the window-boxes, sunlight pure

and yellow, the doors all freshly painted bright—
but it would not be in the holiday spirit
to hold you any longer, so “Merry Christmas” 

as we step around, see the other side is 
sadly not so very different, yet.
But really, you must agree, it's rather nice

the door is there, is freshly painted red,
because there would not be a world at all without it.

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