Blackguard at the Gate
Roger Camp
Our wooden side gate
follows the design carpenters have used
since Lincoln was assassinated.
Five panels of pine,
three two by fours nailed in a āZā formation
and a pair of strap hinges to swing on.
Whitewashed it will last a generation. Or two.
Our panels are mauve, an invitation countered
by the four inch letters spelling DOG,
a sign that did not deter the bulbous black squatter.
Discovering a nickel sized aperture so unnatural
it appeared machined bored
my finger probed its inky cyclopean eye
only to be reverberated, like Odysseus, into rout.
Each time I opened the gate
the bumble-bee would sound the alarm
vibrating the panels acoustic.
Partnered we lived together alarmed
and unharmed.
Roger Camp lives in Seal Beach, CA, USA where he muses over his orchids, walks the pier, plays blues piano and spends afternoons reading under an Angel's Trumpet with a charm of hummingbirds. When he's not at home, he's photographing in the Old World. His work has appeared in Pank, Rust+Moth, Gulf Coast, Southern Poetry Review and Nimrod.