Two Front Doors
During Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony against Brett Kavanaugh, she explained that the details of the assault were first disclosed during a couples counseling session when she tried to explain to her husband why she wanted a second front door installed into their home.
Afterward, we become
our own security
systems. Dress differently.
Our necks forever twisting
to see who is walking behind us.
Our bodies. Our
homes
changed.
A park is no longer a park. It is
too many places not to be seen.
A Bedroom.
A closed door.
A staircase.
What don’t we know
about the architecture of grief?
Our lives grown inward.
Our skin singeing
when held the wrong way.
We do what we can
to pretend
but even the walls feel different now.
Closing in.
Christine,
you don’t have to explain to me why
you wanted two front doors.
Your home is able to lock twice.
You can choose which way
you want to leave.
I live there too.
Meghann Plunkett is the recipient of the 2017 Missouri Review’s Editors’ Prize as well as the 2017 Third Coast Poetry Prize judged by Natalie Diaz. She was a finalist for Narrative Magazine’s 30 Below Contest, The North American Review’s Hearst Poetry Prize, and Nimrod‘s Pablo Neruda Prize. She has been recognized by the Academy of American Poets in both 2016 and 2017. Her work can be found or is forthcoming in Best New Poets 2018, Pleiades, Rattle, Washington Square Review, and Poets.org, among others. She serves as the Poetry Reader for The New Yorker. Visit her at meghannplunkett-poetry.com.