White Doors, by Robbi Nester

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

White Doors

Something’s not right with this 
room, where one door opens 
and another swings on its hinges, 
each giving onto the next 
room, and the next, multiplied 
as in a mirror, each door differing 
slightly in its brass hardware, 
the design of its rectangular 
compartments, blank as photo 
albums stripped of their images. 
The frame of one door wavers 
at the edges, like stiff paper 
thrown into a flame, while
another reveals itself as a drapery 
of doors, a stack of identical white 
entrances or exits, accordion-folded, 
a book of lives standing on edge, eternally 
ajar in the dusty back room of the afterlife.

Robbi Nester

This poem was written as part of the Ekphrastic Halloween surprise challenge.

Robbi Nester frequently writes ekphrastic poetry, and particularly enjoys such challenges as these. She is the author of three books of poetry, an ekphrastic chapbook, Balance (White Violet, 2012), and two collections of poetry, A Likely Story (Moon Tide, 2014) and Other-Wise (Kelsay, 2017). She has also edited two anthologies of poetry, The Liberal Media Made Me Do It! (Nine Toes, 2014) and an ekphrastic e-anthology, Over the Moon: Birds, Beasts, and Trees--celebrating the photographs of Beth Moon. She has published poetry in many journals and anthologies, including this one, and has poems forthcoming in Pirene's Fountain, Cimarron Review, Muddy River Review, and Negative Capability.