My padding footfalls
pause— I,
future doctor, linger,
read fragmented
phrases, X-ray silhouettes, slivers
of a forty-eight-year-old
story, you,
standing and living and
waiting on me behind
this exam room wall.
We are
separated, divided
by wood and plaster and
a white coat and static air and
different paths before
this moment, now.
I think I can never completely know another person, never
know the voices that pressure them,
the Sisyphean hardships they push
again each day, the doors
that shut
again in front of them.
I can never completely know their joys that grow
like tendrils of a plant, stronger over time
than rock or wood doors, that root out degenerate
dis-integrate barriers
that others put
again in front of them.
Yet what we can do is open up
this door, and then all
other possible doors, and
ease the upward motion
for these moments and
listen.