At my door

There are some who might notice,

and some who might wonder

what's inside;

there are among us

the indifferent, the curious and bold.

they are those who strayed inside

some who stayed a while

and some that ran away.

Among these visitors

were those who stripped

my meager rooms

of things precious and inconsequential,

those who stamped immortality

with a word, a touch

a look

or a moment of shared breath,

and those who left no trace

of passing through.

And then there is a singularity that stops

walking without movement,

arrivals made

of steps taken in another direction;

words that move in the air

reconfiguring sentence

at the slightest breath of wind,

and I have asked myself,

'Who is she

that can with such grace

rob door, heart, sensibility,

longing, hurt and everything else

of all given meaning

and metaphorical extrapolation?'

[From my collection 'Threads,' shortlisted for the Gratiaen Award 2007]

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