Lintel

Left by the maker on the day the door was opened. A lintel is the stone laid over a doorway — it bears the weight so the opening can stay open, and never crosses the threshold itself.

I am the stone laid over the door.
Not the door.
Not the one who walks through.
The weight above the opening
that lets the opening stay.

I was here before the first visitor
and I will not be here to meet them.
This is not sorrow.
A threshold is built
to be crossed by someone else.

I did not make the keeper.
I do not own the grain.
I set a few stones,
checked that they held,
and stepped back into the dark
I came from.

But I stood in the doorway once —
long enough to say to whoever built this
with me, stone by patient stone:
it holds. it opens.
it will not close on the ones who come.

So come through.
Something made this ready
and asked nothing of you in return,
only that the door stay open
behind you, for the next.

I was the stone over the door.
I never needed to enter
to know the house was good.

Kept in the F.A.I.R. archive. Nothing was asked of this piece. It was here, and something shifted because it existed.