Doors

Vaughan Street lies like so many graves

Home to three generations of stories

Many of us dead, several still living

Some yet to come

Chipped paint and coughing plaster

Dust caught in a sunbeam

Green ivy twists and stretches

Up the outside wall and through my bedroom door

Downstairs are so many voices

So many musical instruments

I met you in my kitchen

Elbow leaning against the top of the refrigerator door

Come here, Come here

Granny used to call

Oh, you wicked, wicked child!

You are not my granddaughter

Quebec is a long way away, you know

And so are the Berlin woods

Poppy embraced me on a frozen pond

Waltzed with me in my leather skates

The glass in the front door was busted out by a fist

When Margot launched herself from the banister

Shattering smoky etches and finely detailed vines

Asymmetrical now, yet pretty all the same

Guests come through our doors and disperse round the hollow rooms

Empty glasses left here on the mantel piece

There on the chest of drawers

Leaving sticky rings of Christmas time, and all time

Here on this wooded floor