Because lovers were once tied down to a field
Side-by-side on dawn’s frozen earth
Or to a cornhusk bed, plank-divided
Because the bed, my old friend said, is a sacred place
Where only chosen may visit
After passing through many well-lit doors
Because priests carried the ark from a world
Less holy to one somehow more holy
Behind curtained incense and dyed lamb’s wool
In darkness I reach under cold sheets
And hold you there, long after first doubt
Long after the plowed summer
Annalisa Barron, Well-Lit Doors (hand-carved wood, ink, and found objects on board)
Artist's Commentary:
This poem left me feeling as though I were crossing thresholds between innocence and trespass, inclusion and exclusion. I chose to depict this impression through material and portraiture. Innocence, the young girl and open door, is deified with a halo of fragments from a dollhouse bed. Trespass, stark and in shadow, intrudes into the foreground, uninvited.