Password

Password

Dogs dead for nineteen
years guard our email; wrought

iron gates of husbands
and wives and children swing

open to reveal the balance
in the checking account to you only,

once you’ve spoken of them.
Numbers figure in, too. Birthdays

climb onto mothers’
maiden names, signifiers for athletes

follow types of instruments
we adore but have never mastered.

Our passwords mine
the memory, scanning for entities

that affect us so intensely
we wish to write their names again

and again. We call on them
for protection and write them back

into the terrestrial script
of currency and correspondence.