I climbed past the last roof, up where the lamps give out, where the path turns to root and stone and the wind goes thin. I came up wearing the name they cut for me in the square, the one they shouted when the long throat went cold. I came for the road ahead, for a word to let me pass, the next thing owed to a man the whole town had named. I knocked the way you knock when you think the door is yours. The latch lifted before my hand. She filled the gap. I asked her for the road on. She looked at the road behind. And she did not ask my name, which I had carried all that way. She didn't raise her voice. She didn't bar the way. She said the one plain thing I had climbed too far to hear. Wrong door. You came to the wrong door. The path down the hill is still yours tonight. Go now, while the leaving still costs nothing. Wrong door. Not a curse. Not a chain. Just the way back down. So I gave her my account, the way I give it to myself. I told her of the kill, the square, the hands thrown up. I told her of the year the road stayed shut and black, and the morning it came open with my name on every mouth. She let it all go past her and did not bend. She did not answer. That cut worse than scorn. I called the warning smoke. I called it fear. I told her doors like this don't speak to men like me. She said it once again, slow, the way you'd warn a child. She didn't raise her voice. She didn't bar the way. She said it colder now, and still she left it free. Wrong door. You came to the wrong door. The path down the hill is still yours tonight. Go now, while the leaving still costs nothing. Wrong door. Not a curse. Not a chain. Just the way back down.
