GOTHIC DOORS

My father’s tombstone is a slide in motion of arched doors
                              on either side,
Like an entrance into heaven in perfect perspective;
Narrowing to that the portal hole
Where the Church informs us so few go,
As if walking down a path of mirrors where at
An imagined end, he squeezed into paradise…
Knowing him awhile, I think he might have
Felt more comfortable with Bensonhurst roof tops and
Cages filled with pigeons.
He, walking to the wire gate door
To let them wing in figure eights far above the tar
And stove pipe chimneys…
I know that when he let them free,
Part of him was also oblivious to the filthy snow streets
Turning molecule into molecule
Into ice skids for the Italian men with V-8 Buicks…
It was much the same in July, sweltering by 10 AM
When long black dressed widows with flaxen skin
Chatted in between mumbling the rosary…
I’m certain if he ever had to walk the
Shrinking perspective
Between arches of a church
He would know for sure he really didn’t want
To enter heaven.

Ken Siegelman
Brooklyn Poet Laureate
January, 2007