I’ve taken a short break from writing poetry. But I’m back now. I’ve been in a liminal space between the exhale of one season and the first inhale of the next, letting the light change as the season does, too. That’s what this poem is about.
Behind a heavy red curtain,
I press one finger into the velvet
where someone has patched it with black thread.
How many performances has this curtain seen?
Who stood here, beneath the work light,
needle between two fingers,
pulling the torn edges toward each other?
Torn edges are a sign of some previous life
on the tips of leaves and petals,
and on curtains.
The repair is sturdy.
Still, dust forms in a shock of light
where the two halves almost meet.
A man dressed in black sweeps the stage
and leaves one silver staple near the leg of a chair.
Maybe he missed it.
Maybe every room holds on to something
from the people who come and go.
My name rolls around in another person’s mouth.
For a moment, it belongs more to him
than it does to me.
My name has entered the room
before I have.
A woman coughs. A program folds.
Someone unwraps a mint with no care in the world.
My name feels bigger than the curtain.
For now, I move stage left
and stand just beyond the unforgiving patch,
where I can see the light
without having to enter it.
Is the light waiting for me?
Or am I waiting for the light?
Later, in a parking lot beside the park,
I turn the key halfway and let the radio glow.
Near the empty picnic tables, a bicycle with training wheels
rolls across three parking spaces
before catching itself against a curb.
Where is the child who left it upright?
Does the bicycle know it has been left,
or does it believe this is what bicycles do—
wait beside trees until someone returns
to provide the necessary weight?
The clock changes.
A dog pulls its owner
toward the river.
The afternoon light stretches
across the grass,
climbs the legs of the picnic tables,
and settles briefly
on the bicycle at the curb.
By the time it reaches my window,
the gold has thinned.
No one arrives.
I remain long enough
for the radio to repeat a song,
for the bicycle to become
part of the park.
A porch light burns
above a door dented
by knuckles and impatient shoulders.
I lean close with one hand in my hair
and rehearse the sentence
that sounded better on paper.
How many people have stood here
wondering which version of themselves
the room will greet?
I climb two steps
and count them again from the top.
Inside, a floorboard answers a bare heel.
The welcome mat rests crooked against the threshold.
Someone is there. Someone has crossed the room.
I lift my hand.
For one second
before the house knows I have come,
before the door opens
and gives the moment another name,
the knuckles belong only to me—
four pale stones
held above the wood.
—Iris Lennox
