Labeling Keys

When I was 12, I forgot the keys to my parent's apartment. So I simply climbed up seven floors to get in.
~Alain Robert, urban climber

There's something so intriguing about keys.

photo by Ivan Radic

Labeling Keys
by Taylor Mali

Though not a secretive man,
my father understood combination locks and keys.
Yes, he was a Yale man. And he had a love affair with brass.
And he had a key rack as organized as the writing on the label of each key was neat.

It’s the same angel that made him label and date
butcher‐paper­‐wrapped leftovers in the refrigerator
with Christmas‐present creases & hospital corners
and little 2 by 2 post‐it notes with possible suggestions
for the leftover’s use: “Turkey scraps. November twenty­‐three.
Yummy treat for the D‐O‐G?”
secured with (count ‘em) one, two rubber bands,
one for snugness, the other for
symmetry.

But there’s an art to labeling keys.
The one you keep to your neighbor’s house
cannot say on it:
“Neighbor’s house across the street.
In Maine for all of May.”
Similarly, GUN RACK, BURGLAR ALARM,
SPARE SET OF KEYS TO SAAB IN GARAGE:
these are labels you will not see at our house.
Instead, my father wrote in his own argot,
in a cryptographic language of oblique reference;
the key to the burglar alarm he called THE SIREN’S SONG,
the gun rack, THAT INFERNAL RACKET,

read the rest here

You can also watch it here:



Bonus from Taylor Mali's blog: A poetry assignment based on a poem by Danusha Laméris

Michelle has an interview with me and monthlong poetry challenge at Today's Little Ditty!

Rebecca Herzog has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Becky!