O.P.P. #12 — Patrick’s doors…

Day 12 of National Poetry Month.

And we are trying to find the door…

Time Traveler



by Patrick Cotter


Now is before he is born. Days of air
shaken by bees, crow song probing eaves
and quays. Maker of the future a perfect
terra-cotta tense, a tense which sings.
The absence of push in his education
was unpresaged by the door’s lack of wired
Sesame. He waits and waits for egress.
The door needs only his touch.
Its only desire is to swing. He waits
for it to open itself, as the cloud
opens for the melting press of the sun.
He is ready to rot where he leans, leaving
a breeze-blown blemish long after he has arrived.
Long before he has come into being.