Lucía M. Polis The Poetry of

This house once had nine locks and ten door handles.
But, after that night, when, with my second wife,
high as kites, we got locked out on the deck,
this house now had eight locks, ten door handles left.

When she had begun to pack every coat on the rack,
and remove each single thing, bit by bit, the house
became split. Three doors were now locked with one key, then one
more for the garage and the library. But,

for fear that, stormsudden, she’d swoop down, I’d fled
the coop. This house might as well have had no doors at all
at this time, and no locks—which reminds me of
Mother, the shameless hoarder who’d bolt her own door, but

never permitted others this border. Well, I’d had
to rectify this sorry state by jamming
a screwdriver under my door, but, still, even this
didn’t matter, when one day, possibly late, the entire

contents of my old room had been brought one hundred
kilometres by ferry, then strewn on the front lawn
of my house, complete with door. Well, locks had brought
me misfortune before. Somewhere in Kyiv there hangs

a padlock, and rusts, with the key that my first wife had
asked me to put in, then break, as a symbol of trust.