Doors (August)

The doors beep stationery and open to the touch, curve-windows and hard jambs, for the shove of workday bodies stepping through, no choice and a little to gain, out of the cold; bodies, all wearing station platform black and rain cloud grey, except for the one woman wearing the red coat.

The doors, down into the earth that for thousands of years was humus of eucalypt and flood dust and fire layers, open onto the basements waiting for infernal release; while doors in the air open and close whole stories of purgatory that parents and schools only hint at, or hope to warn against.

The doors in the air are storey upon storey of how lawyers make or break and doctors defer or decide and sellers take or time-keep and managers mastermind or muddle; open and shut toward vistas, slide and slam before lifts, revolve and retract back into the icy street.

The doors slam shut and we are in the parallel universe of lines and lights and turns, wherein our mobile minds watch the cold outside with indifferent pleasure, coming somewhere or going, yet more artificial as we pick up speed out onto the freeway.

The Doors on the airwaves, the recurring soundtrack recurving of fifty years, is it any wonder everyone had to be a rock star, everyone was, but the sounds fade away as we leave the room because there are more important things to be done with the long dark evenings before spring.

The doors unhinged are turned into art objects, stacked against walls for collection, converted into work benches and homeless cabins, axed for kindling, melted down to make new doors, piled high at tips, refitted for vertical space continuums.

The doors close as close of day closes, relief to close the door on all the petty problems of workplace, or some monumental dispute stupendously silly; or this or that paperwork; close on mistakes until tomorrow; close with the closeness of us together.