What the Door Taught Me

I turned the handle before he was through,

before I'd said a single word worth keeping —

just nodded, both hands doing what hands do

when the rest of you has given up on speaking.

He was wrong. I knew that on the stairs,

knew it on the sidewalk, in the cold,

reconstructing arguments with all the care

of someone building something already old

and past the point of using. What I didn't know

was this: that being right is not the same

as holding a room — that there's a pressure, slow,

the body learns. A kind of inner frame.

I watched a coworker last week go still,

low voice, full sentences, the contractor

backing down. She didn't raise, she didn't fill

the air with anything. Just held her floor.

I watched her hands the whole time.

Open. Still. I thought about my own grip, how

I called it not my problem, climbed

into the street and left him to allow

himself whatever version of me he needed.

I was right and I was gone and that's

the part they don't warn you: you can be haunted

just as long by exits as by attacks.