The Forgotten Door
By Ms. Jo M
(A novel by Alexander Key)
On your cover a child gasps,
his world’s strange light on his falling face.
Behind him, stars like the chalk dust
travelling the sun-path
from my teacher’s blackboarded words
to my own, which filled lined pages
under my desk’s hinged lid.
You come from etchings on clay tablets,
monks hunched over God’s golden words,
possibility pressed into hand cut pages.
We’re both time stained,
but as I turn your sepia pages,
I meet my child-self
in that marvelling moment
of acquisition: see her use
her own saved coins to find
that people can fall
beyond experience.
And I’m still falling,
your light
upon my face.
