A SECRET PLACE
somewhere there is a room with the windows always open,
a gameroom, deserted, a missing puzzle piece
with part of the sky and a little face.
down in the cellar of the city, or near the waterfront,
screened by steel eyes and sharp tongues.
down where the surf rushes the shore like waves of people,
at the end of a wooden path, through a cape of shadows.
imagine where nothing is as it first seems.
down through the floor into space.

i close my eyes and enter, the door opens twice,
cobwebs soften all the edges with a dusty haze,
the walls a crowded collage of stars and idle wheels wait.
the chips lie with their faces in stale gin.
all the old games are there.

once i wasn't alone. he wasn't very clear,
but somewhere the eyes of a man are always open.
our backs were gameboards and we played one another.
he tapped my mind with a loaded die and two-headed coins,
while i relied on a crooked wheel to raise his imagination.
we played to a tie and played again.
a pistol apiece with a single shell, we spun the chambers,
shot at each other,
and laughed away the dread as he disappeared into a mirror.

at times the cross-draft brings a chill,
an outside voice with the same tired plea,
"let me in, i want to see,"
but the windows are always open at my secret place,
even though images sometimes lie or change,
or like a mirage, disappear when i arrive.