The Keyhole

by Walter de Jong

Our cave we called the Keyhole,

we’d climb up there to see

the ferry carrying families

that drove out to the beach.

I’d sit there and imagine

floods rising high back then

to carve for us this keyhole

then rejoin the world again.

That door opened secretly

to millennia before

the cars, the ferry, boats and planes,

schools and rules and laws

And now…The ferry’s gone, and rust has taken

cars and boats and planes.

While I move on the Keyhole stays,

the secret place remains.

• Submitted in response to 2016 Poetry Prompt #1