The Locked Room

The executor’s voice is a dry, thin reed

asking for lists of the things I don’t need.

I found a photo of a salt-white shore,

a place she never mentioned once before.

And on the back, a strip of yellow tape,

holding a rusted, heavy iron shape.

A skeleton key with a jagged bit,

and the ghost of the glue that once anchored it.

The residue looks like a surgical scar

on the cardboard backing, gray and bizarre.

I’ll never find the door this was meant to fit,

so I’ll carry the weight of the silence in it.