Come Walk Through

By Lana Hechtman Ayers

after Jenny Brown

I would like to be a door

that opens to the sea

as in Hopper’s painting,

no distance between soul and water,

or that swirling sky of van Gogh’s

that torches one’s heart into seeing.

I would like to be a door

that opens into god’s mind,

or yours, since they are

one and the same.

I would like to be a door

that closes on nothing,

so the stars can always

walk through to greet us.

Lana Hechtman Ayers makes her home in an Oregon coastal town famous for its barking sea lions. As managing editor at three small presses, she has shepherded over a hundred thirty poetry collections into print. Her work appears in print and online journals such as Rattle, The MacGuffin, The London Reader, and Peregrine. Her most recent book, The Auobiography of Rain, is available from Fernwood Press. Visit her online at LanaAyers.com.