At the Door (Old Story for a new Age)
When I walk
in doubt
I tell myself the tale
of when Jehovah’s
whiteness
knocked on a red door
somewhere far
from the suburbs
—for a long time
banging filled
the air of the ungentrified
neck of the hoods
as if nobody lived
there anymore.
Yahweh was so old
it took years
to move
from the kitchen
to the front door—
was truly awesome \
but often arrived
too late for that word
to still mean
what it once meant
(though awe
was still awe)
—the door swung
open
as the whiteness
had started sorting
materials
to slide
under the door
they were
bent over
at the threshold
didn’t see it
coming
—a red door
heavy
with history
should be easy to see
but no one had
prepared them
for that scenario
of the gate
suddenly open
a brown Yahweh
asking
what they were doing
there—too
door-smacked
they fell to the ground
as Yahweh beamed
her brightest smile.
Hege Jakobsen Lepri is a Norwegian-Canadian translator and writer. She had her first story published in English in 2013 and that has since been her writing language. Though she's primarily a prose writer, her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in untethered, Prism International, Haiku journal, Under the Basho, Anti-Heroin Chic, Better than Starbucks, Watch your Head and Burning House Press. She has also been part of The Emerging Writers Reading Series in Toronto. You find her at www.hegeajlepri.ca
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