the inconvenience of the threshold
Carl Watson
In a hungry country, a hinge can be a terrifying sound
as translated by sight:
objects insinuate edges & edges are never finite—
walls muster; jambs, joints join in.
Here live a people constantly threatened by doors:
slamming, dicing doors, doors onto depths, thin airs.
Anything that swings, revolves, gates or grates, be it
cage or cross, portal or window,
lips of a parting kiss even, lids of a judgmental eye—they tease.
Steps are minced in fear
before such grand maws as these
& the most assured citizen balks—a pawn to such passing.
In fact, exactly passage is what terrifies them,
even passing to the next room is losing something,
exiting the elevated station via another thieving turnstile,
means bleeding a little.
’Tis a feasting every second & millions move to its tune
in or out of some state,
one step further away from whatever it was
they thought they were or would be.
Carl Watson is a fiction writer and poet living in NYC. His published works include Backwards the Drowned Go Dreaming, The Hotel of Irrevocable Acts, Beneath the Empire of the Birds, Psychosomatic Life and Astral Botanica.