Seven Ways of Being Open by Evan Benedict
i.
a cracked door on a winter morning
bracing wind and slivered light
steam from a coffee mug
lit by sunrise,
and onrushing
of waking.
ii.
bared teeth baboon
smile peeled back
lips stretched in rhesus rictus
face of incisor
and bicuspid,
canine bend
to turn muzzle
to bone
the smile only warns
those who know
how to read it
iii.
a book, obviously.
imperfect metaphor
for oversharing.
an open book requires
an active reader,
but why not tell
the stranger
about your eighth month
of sobriety?
iv.
vomiting up
your binge-eating habits
to your therapist
until your guts
slop the floor
like an overturned
trough in a sty
you empty yourself
like a morning weigh-in
jog before you eat
sweat it out.
he says the scale doesn’t give you value
but everyone else says it does
and you wonder if internalizing
adds to the number.
v.
speak stresses into
the sunlight, that it may strike—
disinfectant beam.
vi.
The parts of a lock:
springs, pins, bible, cylinder.
a little tension,
thin wire
clicks binding
sets driver
turns mechanism
foreclosed homes
only shut out the unhoused
if you let them.
vii.
ask how they’re doing
listen when they answer
you are not the only side
of the open door
Evan Benedict is a high school English teacher at Norfolk Collegiate School in Norfolk, VA. He writes poetry in his spare time, which he has because he neglects other things.