Screen door 1971

Screen door – I miss you.
I miss your frame,

your spring,
your hook
your eye.
Man, that’s a door
for the ages.
Hang it outside in the
storm and wait.

You won’t keep out the drunks,
or the memories.
Or the dirt from the past,
or the gravel dust from the road,
or the bad blood or
daylight.
You won’t keep out,
Aunt Laura.
But you do a
good job with the
 insects.

You allow the first breath of
spring to waft in across the
mud porch.
How they slam you,
you damned old
green, painted – bastard.
But after midnight
I close you gently, old relic
from 1955.
You creak
like petrified bones headed for the
graveyard.

In the daytime, I’d let you fly
fast and hard – wood on wood.

The day I left home
I closed you for the last time.
I was smoking then
I had a suitcase
from Montgomery Wards,
and a  half dozen 8 track
tapes.

You Locked behind me
as
I drove the Ford Fairlane
north
out of town.