Carole Greenfield
Locked in our faults, sacred vaults, spaces
created from manifold connections, intersections
keep chains firmly fastened round wrist
and ankle, heart and tongue.
However long we lock legs, fingers, lips,
no matter how neatly we slip between,
there will come that moment when.
So let’s not speak of fault, my dear,
yours or mine, hers or his, but do consider this:
in your life, what am I displacing? In mine,
what are you misplacing? And can any of it
be replaced once they’ve changed the locks?

Carole Greenfield grew up in Colombia and lives in New England. In the previous century, her work appeared in Red Dancefloor, The Sow’s Ear and Gulfstream. More recently, it can be seen online in such publications as Glacial Hills Review, Sky Island Journal, Solstice Literary Magazine and Dodging the Rain.