National Poetry Month! Editor’s Pick: The Key

Today for National Poetry Month, our Managing editor, Starr Troup selects a poem which comes from Christopher Bursk’s A Car Stops And A Door Opens.

Read “The Key” by author Christopher Bursk below.

Here, the man says, stopping you on the street,
is the key to my heart,
and he closes your fingers
around a real key and then vanishes so quickly
you aren’t sure he’d stood next to you
and when you unclench your fist,
the sun chooses that exact moment

 to congratulate the key and when you tilt it
this way and then that
it turns into an ocean vessel; then a skyline;
then a mountain range;
then three kings in search of the Christ child.
It proves too large
for every lock you insert it in.

This is the key to my heart, the man had whispered,
the way spies do
just before their throats are slit.
How can such a brief encounter change a life
that, up till then,
had no intentions of being changed?
There are too many locks in the world

for a boy to try every one, yet you pass no door
without testing it.

Did you enjoy reading this poem? Comment below.

Don’t forget to pick up a copy of Christopher Bursk’s latest release, A Car Stops and A Door Opens from the CavanKerry Press store.