By Kerry A. Wiley
The smallest changes are not always the smallest.
It began
with a simple revision.
Only the office,
only the letterhead,
only the hallway
where the paperwork sleeps.
The child
remains.
Only the room
that claims them
begins
to speak
a different language.
And yet
A doorway
does not decide
who belongs.
What changes
is not always
what is visible.
Sometimes
it is the meaning
of the room.
Language
is never
only language.
It begins
with the first name.
The first name
is rarely
the last.
Some names
become
windows.
Others
learn
to be walls.
Silence,
too,
has its vocabulary.
A room
can open
without widening.
It can narrow
without moving
an inch.
Institutions
move quietly.
They rarely
announce
what belongs
or
what remains.
Only
the title.
The signature.
The department.
The address.
There was
no single
crossing.
Only
the room
mistaking
its echo
for its voice.
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