Office Door

Written for the Muse Ariadne Project.

A door frame
Is a beast
With very few teeth.
I do not change it
Walking through--
It only starves
If it was starving to begin with.
I do not think it salivates.

It has one claw, at least--
A silvered edge at
Belt loop height.
A vested interest in
Keeping my
Off-kilter self
In a going-nowhere
Kind of motion.
I suppose that all it knows
Is staying.

It is geometry,
Not air.
An outline more than
Matter.

It has a tongue:
Half-inch of rubber, tucked
Over buzzing cord.
Cannot reach to lick
My arcing foot, but
Somehow coils around
Every other ankle.
I wonder if this means
It likes me,
Or if it merely
Wants me gone,
Wants to taste and
Make messy contact
With every other body
Held in-between.