THE KEYHOLE

Sometimes I had my eye too close to the keyhole

    Pulled there by some force like gravity.

    I was gazing with a sharp but narrow focus

    into what I thought was the real.

    But the precision of my gaze

    left out the surroundings, the other doors and rooms

    that  I might have inhabited.

    As he came to me and opened his arms with no rancour,,

    so my eyes opened wider,I took in the new wide vision

    and left my crouched and aching position

    no longer attached like a magnet to your force,

    He was there with his sea eyes.

    He knew the human condition

    And how to inhabit a  conversation.

    Of course he’s had his wounds but never failed to feel

    for himself and others.

    In the night he went through in his mind’s eye the faces

    of his friends;holding them ,like he’d once held fragile rose buds

    when we were married,

    and asked silently for grace.

    The keyhole no longer seemed important

    I suppose narrowing the focus can keep out knowledge of pain..

    But the pain is atill there;

    I have always loved the word “Acknowledge.”

    And now I use it. I acknowledge this pain