Paul Hostovsky

            Back Door, 1973

My thumb is pushing the thin metal thumb lock
of the screen door up and down, up and down,
locking it and unlocking it—click, click, click, click—
while I gaze out past at our tiny poor excuse
for a backyard, just big enough for a tetherball pole.
My mother is sitting at the kitchen table, smoking.
My father is in and out of the hospital, dying.
Her line of sight is a ray: it goes out to infinity and doesn’t
meet mine. The tetherball, pendulous, bruised, oscillates
against the pole like a head scratching itself with no hands.
My nose, pressed up against the screen, is sniffing the air
for the life that’s waiting for me—I don’t know where.
Click, click, click, click. “Stop doing that!” yells my mother,
breaking eye contact with infinity, looking straight at me.

Paul Hostovsky's poems and essays appear widely online and in print. He has won a Pushcart Prize, two Best of the Net Awards, and has been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, and the Writer's Almanac. His newest book is PERFECT DISAPPEARANCES (Kelsay, 2025). He makes his living in Boston as a sign language interpreter and braille instructor. Website: paulhostovsky.com