Oxidation

The garden gate has turned into a wall.

I put my shoulder to the iron frame

and wait for the latch to finally fall,

but it doesn’t even remember its name.

A flake of orange chips off in the heat

and finds the shallow cut along my thumb.

It’s a sharp and metallic kind of defeat

that leaves the rest of my fingers numb.

The hinge has bubbled into a scab

of ten years of rain and winter sleet.

It’s the kind of thing you can’t just grab

and force into being clean and neat.