Becoming Between

ETYMOLOGY OF VAULT: Middle English vaute, from Old French, from Vulgar Latin *volvita, volta, from feminine of *volvitus, arched, alteration of Latin voltus, past participle of volvere, to roll. See wel-

ETYMOLOGY OF VULVA: Latin, womb, covering. See wel-

ENTRY: wel-

DEFINITION: To turn, roll; with derivatives referring to curved, enclosing objects.
Derivatives include waltz, willow, wallow, revolve, valley, and helix.

*

anybody could write

    sex like that

     fingering between

but on the day to question how

       your only answer

is to give a skeleton

key

              to the vault

skirting

the issue

                            skimming

where it fits best

*

I know you

like to change things

to turn things if they open

of course

I’m talking about doors

how they work themselves

into frenzied oblivion

when they won’t unlock

because

hidey hidey ho

there is more

than one safeproof way

through a vault

as if inside safe sleeping

on needles were a fairy tale

as if we were all able

to identify the blind spots

in there

as we shook

the pupil’s dilated hand

*

it’s a sad zoo behind us

sometimes

go ahead

lie (and lay hidden)

in naked little animal zeal

*

out there groaning

in the background

an unearthly glow

a wind meal

in this city of sunsets

imagine a helicopter

fucking with the wind

Deborah Poe’s work is forthcoming or has recently appeared in Copper Nickel, Drunken Boat as a finalist for the Panliterary Awards, Anemone Sidecar, and the anthology Fingernails Across the Chalkboard: Poetry and Prose on HIV/AIDS From the Black Diaspora. Two of her poems were nominated for Pushcart Prizes this year and last. Her manuscript Our Parenthetical Ontology is forthcoming from CustomWords. Our Parenthetical Ontology was also a semi-finalist for Elixir Press’ Seventh Annual Poetry Award.