17 June 2009 | Vol. 9, No. 2
Glass Doors
If it wasn't for the windows, it would all be so different.
The light forced to choose sides, shadows grow different.
A house of glass with wooden gaps wrapped by trees,
gray inside when it rains, at dawn no different.
Porches hold what's too nice for closets. Reminders.
Rackets and bats, balls you're taught to throw different.
Each new day in a routine trains the eyes, renders
the new old. Teaches what you already know, difference.
Only glass doors can close and remain open, silhouette
the familiar in strange light, how the same can show different.
I remember watching a rabid fox maul a broken boombox
on our old porch, how we moved then: slow, different.
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About the author:
Luke Johnson is a recent graduate of the MFA program at Hollins University. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Beloit Poetry Journal, New York Quarterly, Poetry East, Tar River Poetry, Third Coast, and Best New Poets 2008. He keeps a largely self-indulgent blog at http://proofofblog.blogspot.com.
For further reading:
Browse the contents of 42opus Vol. 9, No. 2, where "Glass Doors" ran on June 17, 2009. List other work with these same labels: poetry, ghazal.
