Double Doors
Valentine’s Day breakfast at Baker’s Square:
Laura drinks coffee while I watch Andrew,
who refuses to sit but chooses instead
to stay in the restaurant’s vestibule where
he opens and closes the big double doors
over and over again, as if he’s practicing
a grand entrance–entering, crossing
the threshold, and letting the doors
close behind him. I’m thinking,
it wasn’t so long ago I carried my tiny son
piggyback through the woods to a waterfall;
wasn’t long ago I kissed Laura for the first time;
wasn’t long ago I lived in the house with my dog
and sat with my notebook at the kitchen table
on Sunday morning after working all night–
sipping burnt coffee and scratching out lines,
lighting my hundredth cigarette, starting over
again, determined to write a love poem.
Copyright Credit: Richard Jones, "Double Doors" from The Blessing: New and Selected Poems. Copyright © 2000 by Richard Jones. Reprinted by permission of Copper Canyon Press, www.coppercanyonpress.org.