About Doors Poem by Graham Duncan

about how they open and close,
but sometimes are hard to open
again, or, once open, to close,
at least tightly; how some walls
are painted to look like doors,
convincingly so, but will not
swing wide, the knob stubbornly fixed;
how we hope doors will shut
something firmly in or out;
how a back door defines those who
use it; how a side door can serve
better than some fancy front doors
(the ones we know are all front):
how a door in the floor can trap;
how we discover soon or late
there are no Open Sesames,
that all doors but the weather kind
are more trouble than they're worth;
how you know there's one door that
will open only once and only for you.