[Sonya Dorman “Open the Door” Print]
Sam Maitin
1975
Private Collection
Connected Items:
Open the Door
by Sonya Dorman
homage to Apollinaire*
Open this door where I knock laughing
I carry on my left arm a gold hut
so that I may sleep warm
any place I choose to stop
a little white knife always with me
cuts and cuts the loaves
of farmer’s bread to share
muskrats follow me from their marsh
fish-fed cats from the town pier
open this door where I knock laughing
my right eye is a slingshot
aiming blue stones at rabbits
that get away
my left eye furnishes the woods
with wild grapes
haven’t you seen the oats follow
me to the big mill where a giantess
grinds the sun for porridge
she’ll open her door laughing
when I knock
*Apollinaire’s poem “Le Voyageur” begins “Open the door I knock crying,”