Trapped, the key caught in her throat
taunts the door without the body
and tries to call the red door within the chest
to unhinge itself.

The door jamb’s ripped skin
forms questions in curls of blood
that outrace the river fleeing past her thighs
that was trapped. The key caught in her throat

opens yet another door, a closet
donned in the place of a fear cloak
and to keep the clear folks’
eyes dimmed to her door jamb’s ripped skin

that keeps spinning eyes, fingertips, and hair
from a back bone distaff with its own nervous curves
and a man emerges, lithe and lean-muscled
behind this other door, in a bedroom closet.

Rescue comes to claim her,
erasing bruises, climbing a mountain’s peak
above the mouth from where the river tumbles out,
and bracing ruses up inside her fractured eyes:

that she knows nothing of eyes, fingertips, and hair;
that paradise lives behind a shut closet door;
and that doors can never be unhinged.
Rescue claims to make her come,

but he will fade once the door is opened to daylight,
once the mouth of fantasy is unhinged
and she emerges out from behind secret teeth:
eyes, fingertips, and hair disappear

and silenced lips sewn shut
pray to hide the burns of his fingertips
to the naked betrayal of daylight.
He always fades, once the door is opened.

Written 4/30/11
© 2011 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.
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More from this weekend! This time, I played around with repeating forms like the villanelle and the rondeau, creating a sort of repetition scheme of my own while abandoning the rhyme. Comments and feedback welcome.

-Nicole

P.S. I wrote this on April 30, but forgot to hit the “publish” button. Oops!