-This poem reflects on the screen door as a seasonal threshold, where summer’s constant passage between house and garden gives way to cooler mornings, indoor warmth, and the first small separations of autumn.
All summer, hinges marked the hours,
the screen door opening to the yard,
then closing with its hollow clap
behind bare feet and garden hands.
Now morning presses at the mesh,
a cooler blue fills up the porch,
and no one props the doorway wide
to let the kitchen meet the grass.
A moth rests near the rusted latch,
its folded wings the color of bark,
while asters lean beside the steps
and lift again beneath the wind.
By dusk, the soup begins to steam,
the windows cloud above the sink,
the crickets carry through the screen,
and no one reaches for the latch.