A Cinema Cliché
A stock scene from the movies, I think,
slamming my shoulder into the door,
cops busting criminals,
diving through splintered wood
under a hail of bullets;
betrayed husbands looking into the startled eyes
of wives in bed beside lovers,
a sheet discreetly covering breasts;
treasure-seekers breathing in the dust of centuries
hovering spirit-like over mounds of jewels.
How I long for a stuntman,
feeling my collarbone give a little,
less sturdy than the bathroom door
behind which my toddler
has accidentally locked herself
like Juliet in the tomb,
with the rusty skeleton key
nobody has noticed for years,
lodged in the lock like a plug in a socket,
no one ever having bothered
to lock the closed door
until now.