A Secret Hobby

A Secret Hobby


We keep hinges in a jar shelved and sealed, 
six degrees shy of sunlight. No-one bothers to look 
or even ask about the doors, but sometimes

we lift them out and turn them over in our hands, 
work the dust out of the mechanism, watch the plumes 
in miniature caught in the slipstream of a second

thought. Holding them to our ears, we coerce 
the holes to recollect the threads of screws,
to hunger for the door jamb's grain; with hushed

voices speak the long unspoken words—
Architrave. Mullion. Lintel. Stile.

~

Published in The Journal #33