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The Mortise Lock

It sounds like dying, but deadbolt

mechanisms depend upon precise moments

and movements, cogs and wheels adjoining

in concert or alternating. Can’t you hear it now—

a steam train sounding and all that great

brass rattling down the tracks,

the tracks, the music of life rocking you

in and out of sleep and

wake, the delve and douse we do

when we dream of hearts and souls

and who has claim on ours, a key in an antique

lock, that perfect timing, that turn over and click—

from Angel BonesFind more by Ilyse Kusnetz at the library

Copyright © 2019 Ilyse Kusnetz
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Alice James Books.

Published in Ilyse Kusnetz Poems

This program is supported in part by a grant from the Idaho Humanities Council, a State-based program of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this (publication, website, exhibit, etc.) do not necessarily represent those of the Idaho Humanities Council or the National Endowment for the Humanities.