White Doors, by Devon Balwit

White Doors, by Vilhelm Hammershoi (Denmark). 1905.

White Doors

The house of our soul is never neutral. 
Spirit children quickly devise games 

for its empty corridors, its white walls. 
One, it, becomes monstrous. Those who flee, 

terrified. The lightest footfall threatens, 
the slam of a door makes us shriek. 

Which lintel marks the gateway to hell? 
Which shadow hides a nightmare? 

We become experts on each creaking 
board, on the weight of a footfall. White 

is the shroud, the slow light of Sundays, 
the gleam of bone from our upturned graves. 

Devon Balwit

This poem was written as part of the ekphrastic Halloween poetry challenge.

Devon Balwit writes in Portland, OR. She has five chapbooks out or forthcoming: How the Blessed Travel (Maverick Duck Press); Forms Most Marvelous (dancing girl press); In Front of the Elements(Grey Borders Books), Where You Were Going Never Was (Grey Borders Books); and The Bow Must Bear the Brunt (Red Flag Poetry). More of her individual poems can be found here as well as in The Cincinnati Review, The Stillwater Review, Red Earth Review, The Inflectionist; Glass: A Journal of Poetry; Noble Gas Quarterly; Muse A/Journal, and more.