Closet

The shutter creaks open, peeled paint

flakes into a crude mask of a grimace

brows knitted together in some faint

puzzlement, at any rate a close enough likeness

Why should it take so long to clear cupboards

of diaries and dresses and shoes someone wore

of post-it scraps, scrawled numbers and words

stuck on the back of a wooden door

Why does it take so long to return?

Why do hands pause at the drawer?

before making a bent key finally turn

this last time and then no more, no more

the shutter creaks shut, the sound high and thin

the flakes of paint fall gently. Clods on coffins.