Door

Nov 25 2015

The door was double-hinged

swinging in, as well as out.

It took all my weight, shouldering against.

Then whispered swiftly shut

with a soft pneumatic hiss.

Was that a click,

tumblers falling

locking cogs enmeshed?

And looking out

through the small glass pane

I saw only my face, looking back.

The darkness of night

a mirror's silvered paint.

Triple-glazed

and reinforced with mesh

it seemed unbreakable.

The massive door

I shouldered against,

that let me in

this windowless space.

Stale air

with a vaguely chemical scent.

No exit

despite what they say

about fate, surrender,

trust.

Impatience

trying me.

Thinking

I cannot wait.

                           …I must.

                                                …I will.

I read an article about a man (Abbas Kairostami) who has spent years photographing doors, and whose work is on exhibition at the Aga Khan museum (in Toronto). These are not ordinary doors. They're doors with character and the patina of age, the kind of massive wooden doors and dilapidated doors and doors with stories to tell that you'd see on some ancient building in the Middle East, or sub-Saharan Africa. The pictures were beautiful, and made me think that the lowly utilitarian door was worthy of a poem.

At my new pool, there is a hydraulic door that at first caught me by surprise: if I don't lean all my weight pushing against it, it will snap shut, throw my balance off.

Somehow, the image and the experience conflated, and gave rise to this poem.

I was thinking of the old adage: when a door closes behind you, a window opens. And maybe something about a gilded cage, as well.

The poem can also be read metaphorically: something about life choices and bridges burned, about self-fulfilling prophecies and dead ends. Is he locked in, or locked out? Did he cage himself?

The poem ends with perseverance, the indomitable life force: as in Beckett's Godot, when there is no choice in life, we simply go on.