Vortex Cordis

vortex cordis

Vortex Cordis

Vortex Cordis

Door, there’s going to be one.
Sometimes imbued with a code system,
a double lock,
sometimes janky and off the hinge.

I’ve seen a door so quiet and forgotten
in the middle of some high-
way land, golden and bare
maybe three splintering boards left
to collapse inward,
you couldn’t tell it
apart from a hole
except for the frame around it

which made for a warmer body
once, or a place
to spoon blue
mush, gave a child’s holler
a certain boundary —where at night

I could see a coyote cheek pressed against
the wall, but a door

was imagined there, embedded there,
drew my hand around its knob
the whorl of my heart.