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Terry Provost

KEYHOLE

Even if, trying to sober him up, you
do manage to lock the drunk
in his hotel room,
the one with the four-poster
above the saloon,
there's nothing to keep him from sucking
even more whiskey
from a straw
through the key-hole.
Which is to say that hole is not just
a void, but a means of
communication,
transportation, and potentially even
nutrition. A hole can even be a key
when the key is gone.

So too your lungs can fill
with vacuum.
Vacuum enough to taste spirits
through a hole that leads to
elation, just as well as to
blood poisoning.

When my cousin's son Justin was born there was
a hole
in his heart.
Blood went straight from the right atrium
to the left, skipping his lungs and starving
his spirits
of oxygen.

Holes can nourish
and holes can starve.
Funnel, and short-circuit.

Holes are anything
but simple.

Contact Kathy here