Invention on a Theme By Mark Mitchell

A raft of keys

fanned out

across your desk,

each one built

for some door somewhere.

You know

about locks,

tumblers, picks,

but you won’t go

to that black room

until you

make a guess

you can’t take back.

She will stay trapped—

unseen,

unseeing.

No riddle

needs to be solved

but your certainty

must go.

Leap or fall

blind.

Burn your books

and forget how words mean.

 

Random notes

dropped for you to read:

The keys

guard staffs

and open melody.

She waits

for her own theme

to rise,

for you to sing

in spite

of your untamed voice.

Doors will swing

wide,

paths appear

but you may orchestrate

nothing.

She arrives,

hearing what she sees.


Mark J. Mitchell’s latest novel, The Magic War just appeared from Loose Leaves Publishing. He studied writing at UC Santa Cruz under Raymond Carver and George Hitchcock. His work has appeared in the several anthologies and hundreds of periodicals. Three of his chapbooks— Three Visitors, Lent, 1999, and Artifacts and Relics—and the novel, Knight Prisoner are available through Amazon and Barnes and Noble..  He lives with his wife the activist and documentarian, Joan Juster and makes a living pointing out pretty things in San Francisco.

A meager online presence can be found at https://www.facebook.com/MarkJMitchellwriter/