Who Does Not Love a Wall by Kelly Dumar


 
 
In the unit called Memory Care he grows
wild and young as a colt restless to sow his
oats and goddammit he will find the exit or
die trying, there’s a wilderness out there
stretches for miles – he’s got his eyes right
on it – but some jackass actually built this
wall this way so he can see out but not get
out and some son of a bitch stole all those
things you sit on out here so there’s nothing
to stack and climb to scale the wall and before
I built a wall like this, he says like somebody
who said it first, I’d ask to know what I was
walling in or walling out and to whom I was
like to give offence and what he knows but
doesn’t say is if there’s a wall and a will
there’s a way.
 
 
 

Kelly DuMar is a playwright, poet, fiction writer, and workshop facilitator from the Boston area whose recent publications include short stories in Sliver of Stone, Literary Mama, Red Earth Review, poems in Blast Furnace, *82 Review, Apeiron, Poydras Review Blog, and Ginosko, as well as short plays in Art Age and Foxing Quarterly. She founded and produces the Our Voices Festival of Women Playwrights, now in its 8th year.