The Closet

Bill Knott

Here not long enough after the hospital happened

I find her closet lying empty and stop my play

And go in and crane up at three blackwire hangers

Which quiver, airy, released. They appear to enjoy

Their new distance, cognizance born of the absence

Of anything else. The closet has been cleaned out

Full-flush as surgeries where the hangers could be

Amiable scalpels though they just as well would be

Themselves, in basements, glovelessly scraping uteri

But, here, pure, transfigured heavenward, they’re

Birds, whose wingspans expand by excluding me. Their

Range is enlarged by loss. They’d leave buzzards

Measly as moths: and the hatshelf is even higher!—

As the sky over a prairie, an undotted desert where

Nothing can swoop sudden, crumple in secret. I’ve fled

At ambush, tag, age: six, must I face this, can

I have my hide-and-seek hole back now please, the

Clothes, the thicket of shoes, where is it? Only

The hangers are at home here. Come heir to this

Rare element, fluent, their skeletal grace sings

Of the ease with which they let go the dress, slip,

Housecoat or blouse, so absolvingly. Free, they fly

Trim, triangular, augurs leapt ahead from some geometric

God who soars stripped (of flesh, it is said): catnip

To a brat placated by model airplane kits kids

My size lack motorskills for, I wind up glue-scabbed,

Pawing goo-goo fingernails, glaze skins fun to peer in as

Frost-i-glass doors ... But the closet has no windows,

Opaque or sheer: I must shut my eyes, shrink within

To peep into this wall. Soliciting sleep I’ll dream

Mother spilled and cold, unpillowed, the operating-

Table cracked to goad delivery: its stirrups slack,

Its forceps closed: by it I’ll see mobs of obstetrical

Personnel kneel proud, congratulatory, cooing

And oohing and hold the dead infant up to the dead

Woman’s face as if for approval, the prompted

Beholding, tears, a zoomshot kiss. White-masked

Doctors and nurses patting each other on the back,

Which is how in the Old West a hangman, if

He was good, could gauge the heft of his intended ...

Awake, the hangers are sharper, knife-’n’-slice, I jump

Helplessly to catch them to twist them clear,

Mis-shape them whole, sail them across the small air

Space of the closet. I shall find room enough here

By excluding myself; by excluding myself, I’ll grow.