
A Spare Key
I am eight. I’m very grown up.
I have my own front door key.
Happy birthday, my mum said.
Keys are power. Keys hanging
heavy on chains, swinging
long from my father’s belt.
Keys worn like puzzles, jewellery,
like a thinly bared brass finger.
No more scratching around
like a dog pawing a lost bone,
or searching dark secret spots
under porch steps, or hiding
a spare under a flower pot.
In my grip and grasp, I have
this shiny brass pressed deep
into my hand, its sharp teeth
jagged against my fingers.
It’s feels body-hot on my skin.
Try it, my mum says, so you
know it works.
Into the lock, gently turned,
a click and fragile tumble, and
I’m safe as houses, inside.

Written for Visual Verse’s October image and submitted for publication to their monthly anthology. Shared with @Experimentsinfc #APoemADay on Twitter poem © Misky Image by N Jain. Header image photo by Victoria Strukovskaya on Unsplash
14 responses to “October’s VV Image Prompt”
Gosh. My daughter lost so many keys I had to have the locks changed. Seriously. It only finished when she left home. I think a key-safe now is the best option. You know, a strongbox on the wall.
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My neighbour has one of those, a digital-code box, for the healthcare worker who comes every day. Brilliant idea.
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I foresaw problems with the insurance… your house gets burgled so they welch on paying out because the thief broke into an insecure key safe… so I tried to find an insurance-approved one. UIt was like I was speaking a foreign language. Bujt, I still want one.
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I wonder if someone at your local surgery would know what their visiting nurses prefer.
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dunno. Was thinking of it just as a general solution, to save me carrying a key, rather than anything for anybody else’s benefit.
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The key to your poetry is that it is never spare! 🙂
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What a lovely thing to say, Hobbo. Thanks.
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You are very welcome, as always! 🙂
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What power at 8! Actually I was a latch key kid at 8 too. But we hid the key at home. I didn’t take it with me. And our little dog had her kennel under the cottoneaster bush and would hide until she knew it was me. 😀
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Poor little dog. Do you think she was terrified like that all day long until you came home?
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I don’t think so. It was a quiet street. She wouldn’t have had many visitors.
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What breed was (I assume ‘was’ is correct) she?
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She was sold to us as a cattle dog /kelpie cross. Cattle dog was right but we’re pretty sure the kelpie was a corgie. 🙂 She never grew much upward. Sweet girl though.
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Corgies are so sweet.
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