A Tin of Keys

[LynnDoiron]

This is the homemade tambourine
of jingles from abandoned doors,

an instrument of jangled clicks
that time has tumbled houses through,

and cars - a '59 Ford, '61 Bonneville,
minty-green Buick with gills -

and keys to pink diaries with poodles and locks
to the pimply yearning of miles and miles

of girls, a generation of women known for
lost fumbling at doors to find kisses

or later, much later, the key to lock up
while the boy of "back then" grows bald

and a little paunch (with love handles); he honks
the horn of a car where children, some boys,

girls, side by side by side, all waiting
for you -- impatiently whine,

blessedly whine -- for you to turn
and join them in a two-tone wagon

that is only a jangle now, a jingle inside
a tin lifted to rattle out old songs.




[after Kooser's A Jar of Buttons, Delights & Shadows]

[MichaelFirewalker]

how fortunate your children are, lynn, to receive such elegant memoirs of their early years with you----I like the onomatopoeia of the jangling tin, and the skill of your penned scenes filming your years...

michael

[Ken_Nye]

Lynn, I read this as the girls and the boys were your age, you were a teenager in the days of the '59 Ford and '61 Bonneville. Your memories of those days have been picqued by this tin of jangling keys to cars that are gone, doors that no longer want to go through. And, interpreting the poem that way, I loved it. Am I again out in left field?

Ken

[LynnDoiron]

The poem is meant to pick up on those junk drawers or baskets or tins where keys collect and forgetfulness as to what car they started or what address they opened or what they were used for; the poem is intended to prick the memories of people who have old leftover keys and who maybe kept diaries, as I did, as many, many girls did; who maybe had a family car that was a station wagon and maybe had kids in the back. The poem is meant to rattle the memories any of us could recall. The concrete images I used are just concrete images to ping into the memories of readers. It's not a matter of wanting or not wanting to go through doors, but a matter of having moved on, for whatever reasons (jobs, relocating, growing up and moving out, etc.) or sold off the car we did drive and replacing it with another. Meanwhile, all these keys collect -- keys that were for "something" we no longer use.

Ken -- how can you be out in left field if the poem moved you to see it in a certain light? If you see it that way, then it is that way.

Michael -- this is not a personal memoir but a poem that was written due to a one word prompt -- the word KEY -- and my attempt to create a metaphor using that one word. I did own a minty green Buick, my first car ever, with gills -- but I don't have a tin full of keys and never had a two-tone station wagon or plural boys . . . nor did my late husband live long enough to bald or have a paunch. If the poem fails to create a broader connection than just a memoir, specific to me as the author, then it has failed and most definitely needs some work; if the poem strikes a chord with some readers as having a bit of universiality to it, then it may be worth redeeming.

Thanks, Michael and Ken for commenting.

lynn

[purplejacket]

I enjoyed this. Heck, I pretty much always enjoy your writing. That first line is fantastic - spot on. I don't really care whether you have a tin of keys or not. I used to have a tin of keys, before we moved, and that is the one I pictured. There are some really interesting things you've done here, like time tumbling houses (and all that other stuff) through a tin. The timing and pacing of this are really great: the sort of litany of things keys belong to, the fumbling for keys and kisses simultaneously, the kiss that becomes a husband... This is just so well crafted and it's all one sentence. ha ha. The "locked" yearning of girls, of miles in cars. It's such an interesting one to me. ok. I'll stop blathering and drooling now.

[LynnDoiron]

Good for you, Amanda! My grandma had an pink Almond Rocha tin with keys and odd bits in it, paperclips, you know. Glad you could picture one from your past. Keys are just interesting; I didn't even think about song/music, probably because I'm a real dud there, but a whole other poem could be written using keys in melodies, you know? Thanks for looking.