I Think of a Door By James Lilliefors

I Think of a Door

I felt the fall of a fast-fading day,      
Worried I’d wake in a familiar way:
Alone in my bed, unable to see
All the things that by day mattered to me.

Bewildering, then, to wake on this aisle,  
In a cheap movie house, stuck for a while.  
A spectator, seeing lives on a screen          
Larger than life-size, mildly obscene.
 
The watchers are night-blind, lost to the show,
Lost to the darkness, to the bloodless blow
Of pornographic news, to sweet decay. 
The show is what matters, they mutely say. 

It may be true, but I think of a door.
I think of a door and what matters more.

James Lilliefors is a poet, journalist and novelist, originally from the D.C. area. His writing has appeared in Ploughshares, The Washington Post, Door Is A Jar, Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, Anti-Heroin Chic, Snake Nation Review, The Miami Herald and elsewhere. His non-fiction book HIGHWAY 50 was once favorably reviewed in a front-page story in the New York Times Book Review. His most recent book is the novel THE PLOT TO KILL PUTIN. He is a former writing fellow at the University of Virginia.