You must build doors
to invite people in
is what they’ve told me
since the funeral,
but these are coddled,
runny-hearted
idiots, the open
floor plans of people.
They lust after beige:
plush-carpet beige,
nice and wanting
nothing. What I want
is to pause
for caterpillars
and talk to them
like we talked
to her in hospice.
You look for twigs
to coax them
to grass, deliver them
from the threat
of neighborhood kids
who love nothing
inside their rooms
and would murder
for candy, or pets
they would let die.
They are too young
to love a better way.
To close these doors
built to nowhere,
doors flung open
just for them
to hurtle through.
Emily Kingery is an Associate Professor of English at St. Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa, where she teaches courses in literature, writing, and linguistics. Her work appears or is forthcoming in multiple literary journals, including Eastern Iowa Review, Gingerbread House, High Shelf Press, New South, PROEM, Prometheus Dreaming, Quercus, and Telepoem Booth, and she has been a Pushcart Prize nominee. She serves on the Board of Directors at the Midwest Writing Center, a non-profit organization that supports writers in the Quad Cities community.
