Deed

Let it finally be Friday, let me drive

downtown before five, park in the one

space left open in front and feed the meter

the exact change it needs. Let me go into the office,

sit and nod, unfold my check on the table

and sign. Let the line not be dotted, let it

be solid. Let it be my name.

Let it be final.

Let me pull into the driveway while

it is still light. It’s well past five and well

into October and they are just about

to change the time. Saturday night

on the local news they’ll remind

us all to Fall Back, but I make it in

under the wire. There is still light.

There is still time.

I am up the back porch steps, under

the awning, my hand on the back door lock

the realtor left on. Let me remember rightly

the numbers he gave me. Let this not be the dream

of the high school locker with the Master Lock

whose combination you forgot or fumbled, turning

too fast, going too far, everything you’d locked up

irretrievable, lost.

Let the lock fall open, let me leave it

on the steps for the realtor to pick up.

Let him pull up the flimsy stakes

of the sign in the yard that says I can be bought,

let him drive away. Let no Master

enter through my door.

Let the house be a disaster, I don’t care.

Let the smoke-framed blanks where another

woman’s pictures marked the wall be the story

of how my edges caught fire and the ash at last

let me see where I stood. Let the cracked

kitchen floor make a map to teach me

where not to step, how not to fall through

and break my very own back.

Let the broken window be a way out,

the broken door a way in. Let me go

to the hardware store and buy the tools

to take the chain off the bedroom door,

let me paint the bathroom pink without asking,

walk naked and unafraid through all my rooms.

Let me pick up a broom and sweep

nothing under the rug. Let me sweep it all

into the light. Let me do it. Let there be time.

Let there be light.