I become more kind late at night

when the bulbs in my eyes dim,

changing my sight. No longer

do I find the scene set in glass,

with motions caught in liquid

shift. In the darkness, with

those three stars in the red sky

of the city, I confront strange doors

and create a knock for each.

Here, a strong, assured one,

for the woman who is expecting

the man to confess he loves

another. Here, a hesitant one,

for a figure sitting, still and straight,

feeling hope like melted glass

coursing her veins. Here, just one—

the knock that comes first, for

the sleeping shadow who will rise

and find no one at the door, who

will question the sound, and find,

on returning to bed, that some crucial

event was forgotten. An engagement,

an appointment, a short conversation

that would have led, perhaps,

to immense monetary gain,

or a garden patch of marigolds.

It is best to remind these souls,

bolted and locked behind dead pine

and the bold metal of earth, that there

are certain kindnesses felt only in absence.

When the doors are opened, there is

never a single word exchanged.

Each one finds what they need

in the knock, in the empty silhouette

of sound shaping some greater language.

We are all weary, cold, standing watch

for our lives, mourning a cathedral

tumbling apart in deep, desert Spain,

wearing our prayers to feel them kiss

the nape of our necks. We leave

these soft places exposed—the neck,

the hands, the crook of the knee and

a slip of the stomach, the curl behind

one's ear—tempting fate into touch,

opening doors to strangers that have gone.