Adrienne Rich — Skeleton Key

In the marina an allegro creaking boats on the tide each with its own sway rise and fall acceptance and refusal La Barqueta, My Pelican barometer in the body rising and falling … A small wound, swallow-shaped, on my wrist ripped by a thorn exacerbated by ash and salt And this is how I came to be protector of the private and enemy of the personal … Then I slept, and had a dream No more No más From now on, only reason’s drugged and dreamless sleep … Creeps down the rockface shadow cast from an opposite crag exactly at that moment you needed light on the trail These are the shortening days you forgot about bent on your own design … Cut me a skeleton key to that other time, that city talk starting up, deals and poetry Tense with elation, exiles walking old neighborhoods calm journeys of streetcars revived boldness of cats locked eyes of couples music playing full blast again Exhuming the dead Their questions