Bang In and Bang Out

Like a clapper rattling loose
the doors of this house clatter.
Bang in and bang out.
People coming in and going out,
whom I don’t know, flicker past me for a moment.
And greet me with a smile.
I return their greetings,
smiling a little questioningly.

I sit dazed on the low stool.

Bang in and bang out
in this wide-open inn,
which nails me to itself
day after day, day after day
ever more and ever tighter,
grown used to the sound of the clattering door
and to the clapper of my own and others’ smiles.

Bang go they and bang go I.
Bang, bang, bang...
My silence clatters too,
which I long ago stopped understanding.