Caught Between

The building lobby. A woman waiting.

I'm waiting too. The door keeps rotating—

the same pace, the same rhythm.

In and out. A mechanical system.

One person got caught for a second.

Not trapped, exactly. Just reckoned

with in the middle of the rotation.

Caught between the station

of inside and outside. Mid-turn.

The glass panels wouldn't learn

to stop for her. She had to move

with the door or lose

her place in the sequence.

She stepped through. The presence

of her was just a pause

in the revolving. No cause

for the door to acknowledge

her. It has no knowledge

of the people it carries.

Just the mechanical series

of pushing and turning.

The bodies keep returning

to the same entrance.

The door makes no entrance

into their lives. They enter

through it, but it won't center

them. Won't mark them.

Won't even dismark them

once they're through.

I watch the rotation continue.

The bodies blur together.

I don't know if they're whether

they're coming or going.

The door keeps knowing

only itself. Its pace.

Its mechanical grace.

My appointment is soon.

I'll step into the cocoon

of the door. It will turn me

around. It won't learn me.

Won't remember that I

was here. I'll just comply

with the pace. The pressure

of glass. The measured

rotation that doesn't stop

for anything. I'll drop

into the sequence.

There's no sentence

to this waiting.

Just the door, rotating.