The Latch

I was early. Nobody had come.

The church was cool and smelled like something numb —

wax, old wood, the inside of a drawer

that nobody opens. Near the far

side aisle: the booth. The door not quite shut.

A small brass latch. A gap. A kind of cut

of dark where it had drifted, maybe an inch.

I'm not Catholic. I didn't flinch

away, though. I stood. I looked.

The latch had a shine in the center, worked

by years of thumbs. The door just hanging there.

The dark in the gap. The cool air

going in and not coming back out.

I thought about the latch. What it's about,

the gap — the way a room that's asking something stays

quieter than one that doesn't. Days

like this I think about the door.

Not the faith. Not what it's for.

Just the gap. The brass worn down to gold.

The ceremony started. I got cold.