Yanis Iqbal

threshold

Roofdoor.
Lobbysky.
Hinge-breath.

I stand in the woodmetal betweenplace,
heel-in / eye-out / pulse-half.

Door = do-or = dor = or.

Grainvoicewood murmurmurmurs
in brownlong fiberspirals,
while the metalsecondskin
poreporepore
sunspits
lightdust
through its pinprick-thousand.

Not open.
Not closed.
Clopen.
Ope-
-ningless.

Threshold = thresh-hold = holdthresh =
a held threshing of air
where lobbyheat meets roofglare
and both misremember their edges.

My shoulder becomes outness.
My ankle inwards.
My spine a hinge-think,
creakthought,
swingstate.

Sunlight enters as fragmentfall:
goldspecksyntax
siftersift
through metalled lacework.
Each pore a sunlet,
sunseed,
unsun.

Light perforates itself.
Per-forate.
For-ate.
Ate the for.
Leaves only per.

Woodlayer: thickthudheart,
sapghosts coiled in grainline script.
Metal-layer: chillgrid shimmerweb,
holelanguage.
Hol(e)y unwall.

Two skins.
Skinwithin skinwithout.
Innerouter overlaid like misprinted maps.

The door stands at meetpoint
of roof’s unceiling and lobby’s corridor-throat.
A throatdoor.
A door-throat.
Speechless passagebreath.

I press palm to woodwarm
feel the treepast.
I press cheek to metalcold
feel the skyfuture
through its thousand small absences.

Rooflobby.
Lobroof.
Door at their splice-seam,
upright comma rusting in noon.

No forward.
No after.
Only splinterflux.

Woodgrain-script curling back into itself,
treeremnant breathlocked in brownfibers.
Overlaid: metalmesh, poregrid,
a skincage riddled with sunpoints,
each hole a tiny unwalling.

Light enters sideways.
Sideways enters light.
Sidelight unsides itself.

Through the pore-thousands:
sunshards, dustglyphs, speck-constellate scatter,
a freckling of glare across lobbycool.
Not passage.
Per-for-a-tion.
For-per.
Porepour.

The door: dor / or / riftplane.
Clovenclasp.
Claspcleave.
Closedopen.
Openclosed.

Hinge-think grinding small iron syllables:
skrrk—skrrk—
a phoneme of almost.

Insidehalf / outsidehalf
misfitted like two maps sharing a river
yet denying shore.

Woodside humthick, sapmemory slowcoiled.
Metalside chillbright, latticeglint prickshot.
Between them: airbraid.
Plasterheat braided with skyflare.

Absence.
A-
b-
s-
ence.

Aperture?
A-pert-ure.
Perturbed airure.
Utter?
Ut-ter.
Tear the t.
Airure again.

No conversion.
Only recombinance.
Voidvowel threaded through consonantmesh.

My heel lobbyrooted.
My crown roofdrifting.
Torso hinge-lung,
breathing splinterlight.

Sun pores the metal.
Metal pores the sun.
A mutual riddling.
Riddlemetal.
Sunmesh.

Dustmotes ignite midgap
tiny noon-seeds
sprouting stargrain across tilefloor.
Floor-ceiling reversed,
ceiling-flooring downward.

Dustmotes ignite midair
becoming starstairs
between downfloor and upvoid.
Air writes itself in dotted blaze.
Daze.
Day-aze.

Sentence breaks at hinge.
Clauseswing.
Syntax slips its screws,
falls into gapspace
where neither room claims custody.

Lobbyside hushfolded.
Roofside wideflung.
In the seam:
seamself,
selfseam,
stitchedunstitch.

My body grammarfractures:
ribroof,
lunglobby,
skinporous as the metalmask.
I inhale specklight.
Exhale shadowgrain.

The door does dooring.
A verb without edge.
Dooredness.
Doorhood.
Doral.

Betweenplank and poremesh
a thirdclimate hums:
halfheat hushglare,
uninterior exsterior.

Exsterior.
Inxterior.
Territory slips its terrors.

The hinge repeats its iron mantra:
swingwing unswingwing
staygo
gostay
neither-nor-ither.

I remain midstep,
midword,
mid—

cut.

Light spills in stipplecodes,
sunbraille across the lobbyfloor,
each brightdot a minor breach
in the architecture of enclosure.

Roof above breathes bluevast.
Lobby behind holds squarequiet.
The door stands—standstill—
stillstand
thresholding.

And language here unhouses itself,
becomes porepoem,
woodwound,
metalmettle,
brokenwhole
wholebroken
neitherin
norout
nor
or.

‍Yanis Iqbal is studying at Aligarh Muslim University, India.