All the squeaky doors of Budapest

 

All the squeaky doors of Budapest 

Solid ancient entrances

Portals to the past

When revolutionary exchanges

Led Sándor Petőfi to the strangers

Knobs in fingers united and pulling

Hapsburg closets inside dark courtyards

Bright door surface facing outward 

of steel sliding doors jarring closed 

taking me up

Walking the fine line 

of pre-soviet design and 

post-Soviet oversight

Socialist welfare or

capitalist poverty

Getting the rope from a man sitting idlily

Behind doors swinging back to back

Makes like thunder 

when they smack

Sept. 9, 2023