Your door shut flat against the frame Mine stayed open by an inch Between them, one long strip of carpet Held the shape of what we missed I remember your coat on the banister One sleeve turned toward the stairs My shoes set square beside the threshold Your keys left somewhere I could hear A shoulder crossed the painted surface Stretched too tall, then broke in two I took that bend around the corner As a faithful shape of you I knew the angle from my doorway Knew the hour by the pipes Knew the words that reached my end of it And called the outline life The wall gave me an outline I traced it from my side A body made of edges A moment made of sides I swear the marks are honest I swear I saw them right But honest is not whole When the hallway splits the sight There must have been another surface Catching pieces I could not The back of me beyond my doorway The space behind the words I dropped I cannot paint your end from here Or make your silence mean a thing I only know the hinge kept moving While old pipes knocked behind the wall The carpet held two sets of footprints Then wore their separate weight away Two shadows met along the plaster Each cut short where the corner turned The wall gave me an outline I traced it from my side Not false because it happened Not whole because it's mine The marks can all be honest And still divide the sight One hallway, two positions The corner cuts each picture short I kept the chipped paint by your doorframe The colder draft, the buzzing pipe The hook where your coat pulled the plaster The scuff that stopped before my side Each mark stayed fixed against its surface Each angle held where I had stood The bend kept half the passage hidden However well I drew what showed I DREW A WHOLE PERSON FROM A SHADOW ON MY SIDE Now every line I trusted Shows the border of my sight The wall gave me an outline I traced it from my side A body made of edges A moment made of sides I won't rename your distance Or say what stood behind Your side of the hallway Was never mine to define Your door, my door The bend between Two honest walls One broken scene
