“The Door is Round and Open*” by Pauletta Hansel

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Some mornings the poem
is waiting for you, sits on
your sleep-breathed chest
like a well-mannered cat
watching for one eye
to open before
putting a paw
to your cheek.
I’m here.

Other mornings you wake
ripped from sleep,
the jagged edge of dream
still in the wound
you will learn to call
poem.

Most days you must rise
in search of it; the poem grew
weary of your constant slumber
and found the only open
window, then burrowing
beneath your garden
fence, it scurries out
to places you would fear
to roam were it not
calling for you—
don’t go back to sleep.*

-Pauletta Hansel

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