A Gate's Lonely Life

The story of a squeaky gate and its friend

...

I am wood,
covered in paint.
I have rusty nails,
I welcomed a bundle into the yard,
the bundle was fuzzy and crying.
It wailed in a small voice.



The child is my feet,
he moves me as far as I’ll ever go,
Which is no more than a lonely distance,
No more than three feet.



My arm is a leaver,
it moves up and down.
He is as tall as me now,
The child.
He try’s to pull my arm off.
Three times a day.



My mouth is not a where,
but a when. When the yellow bus is coming.
When I am opened, I sing,
As I am left to bang shut again,
from my mouth comes that lonely sound,
A gentle, hopeless sigh.



My hair is the paint,
it’s left me bald in places.
In others, it is peeling.
The child that used to paint me,
he is gone now,
to “College” I hear.



I am back.
So is the child.
He came to see me today.
He saw me and I welcomed him
with a flaky wave of paint.


Then he came back with a bucket
and a brush.
I am back.