to my fifties

To My Fifties
–Jane Hirshfield

You opened me
as a burglar opens a house with a silent alarm.
I opened you
as a burglar opens a house with a silent alarm.

We knew we had to work quickly,
bears ecstatic, not minding the stinging.

Or say it was this:

We were the wax paper bag
in which something was wrapped.
What was inside us
neither opaque not entirely transparent.
Afterward, we were folded into neat creases.

Or this:

Say we were paired
parentheses
cupping two dates, a hyphen,
and much that continues unspoken.

Say:

We were our own future,
a furnace invented to burn itself up.

Photo by Amruth Pillai on Unsplash