the slip up


I’ve only let
one someone see
my private tome of
hand painted idioms
etched languidly on the slats my
cherry box.
Yet since I let
that someone see
the latch
has never fastened
right again.

Now I am on one knee.
trying to force the damn thing shut
but I just can’t make the
cover fit the shape,
Such glaringly paltry air holes
trying to suck me back into
those petrifying pages
and remind me what a trick I was to
willingly
let you see.



© 2001, Arden Davidson