Madelyn Garner

The Black Door

In the ways of bed and moon and
sleep’s heavy door     sealing me

within that place with no beginning      no end 

until I wake

in present tense to shadows complicating
the windows,

and row after row of familiar faces
forever earthed behind
their own doors.

For a moment, I am alive to simpler light

until the memory of that black door
returns
so heavy with each breath     each wished-upon.

An opening that can be tall as a billboard
or god-ladder     sometimes
small enough to park in my pocket

but most days a black whisper
within rooms—

white walls     white blinds     white curtains   

whitening body.

Recent winner of The Western Humanities Review Poetry Prize, and runner-up for the Humboldt Prize, Florida Review, Madelyn Garner’s writing has appeared in The Best American Poetry, Alaska Quarterly Review, Laurel Review, Sand Hills, Salamander, Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, Tar River, Pembroke Magazine, The Pinch, and Southern Indiana Review, among others.  She is the co-editor of the poetry anthology, Collecting Life: Poets on Objects Known and Imagined.  Her debut poetry manuscript, Hum of Our Blood, winner of Tupelo/3: A Taos Press July Open, was published in 2017.