Howard F. Stein’s most recent poem to appear here was “Nothing” (June 2018). Since its acceptance by vox poetica, the poem below, “Keys,” has appeared in Stein’s newest collection of poetry, CENTRE AND CIRCUMFERENCE: A COLLECTION OF POEMS, published in June. 

Keys
By Howard F. Stein  

Keys in dishes
Keys in drawers
Keys in ash trays
Keys in jars

Keys that once
Locked and unlocked
Places I knew well—
A set of car keys
Forty-five years old,
But mostly no longer connection
Between key and place.
No link between
Signifier and signified.

There is no more unlocking
With these keys.
The keys themselves
Are now forever locked.
They hold secrets
They cannot tell.
Strange to think metal
Could float in time
Like characters adrift
In Chagall paintings.

I cannot throw
My keys away.
Strewn, yet locked,
They are my life.