There's a door you don't look at.
Let the eyes close.
And let a wall come up in front of you.
Whatever it is made of.
Than a doorway in it.
And a door hung in the doorway.
Paint it.
And paint it again.
Over the first paint.
So the edges have gone thick and soft-cornered.
And you could not say now what color it started.
Take a breath.
Let it out slow.
And let the rest of the wall finish arriving while it goes.
Again.
Slower out than in.
It is an ordinary door.
Nothing hangs on it.
It does not lead anywhere you would call somewhere.
You go through it several times a day.
You have never once stood in front of it like this.
It does not shut on its own.
Go through it now.
Your hands find the handle without being sent.
And there is emotion in it.
Feel it in parts.
You take a little of the door's weight.
Lift it.
Barely off its own hinges.
You press it in toward the frame.
A steady pressure,
Not a shove.
Then you turn.
It catches.
It only catches if you lift first.
You have never tested that.
You chest lift.
And you do not remember learning it.
There was no day you stood here and worked it out.
At some point,
The hand had it,
And after that,
The hand did it again.
And the part of you that decides things was never brought in.
The door is square.
It was made square and it has stayed square.
The frame is out of true.
The wall it sits in has been leading a fraction over years in a direction it is still going.
You lift and press and turn.
It works.
Do it once more.
And listen this time.
There is a sound.
A short,
Dry scrape as the edge comes across the frame,
Then the click.
Two sounds.
Close together,
The same every two times.
Anyone in the next room could tell you from the sound of it.
They would not know if they knew.
Now look at the handle.
There is a place on it where the finish is gone.
Worn through to the mental underneath about the size of a thumb.
That is yours.
That is where you press.
And along the door's edge.
Where it meets the frame.
The pain is rubbed thin in one hand.
In the middle of the band,
It's off entirely.
Bare wood,
Gone smooth.
That took a long time.
You are good at this.
Someone else would come at this door and rattle it.
Stand there working the handle and calling back into the house to ask what is wrong with the things.
You have never asked anyone.
You have never brought it up.
It is too small to bring up.
It is a door.
You lift it.
Now follow the latch.
Look at the jam.
Not the door.
The upright piece the latch goes into.
There is a metal plate set into the wood.
With a hole in the metal of it for the latch to chop through.
Two screws holding it in.
And around it.
In the wood.
There are other holes.
Old screw holes.
A pair,
A little above the plate.
Another pair below that.
A third pair,
Lower again.
And set over to one side.
Each pair is where the plate went.
When the plate was right.
Someone filled one set with putty.
You can see it.
A slightly different color.
Sanded flat.
And paint it over with the rest.
Whoever did that did not come back for the others.
Put your thumb on the wood between the holes.
It gets a little.
It is soft there.
Work too many times and it will not hold a screw much longer anywhere along that stretch.
There is a clear wood above the last pair.
And a clear wood below.
The frame is still going.
It has not stopped and it is not going to.
Slowly,
In the direction it is already going,
For as long as the building stands.
Take your thumb up the wood.
One question.
What a tank!
What are you going to keep working around?
Your hand is already on the handle.
Nothing has happened.
The door is where it was.
Your hand is where it was.
Now go through.
Lift,
Press,
Turn.
It catches.
Your hand comes off the handle.
You were through.
And you are not thinking about the door.
This room.
The one you are in.
It has a door in it somewhere.
Open your eyes.
