Do not judge too harshly the flinch

beneath your welcoming embrace.

I have waded the deep drifts of

unrelenting crisis, dripped the

icy residue of rejection

all over the carpet and feared

that I would be sent back out,

having forgotten how to smile.

The blaze of human kindness gives

exquisite pain to one fresh in

out of the cold night of sorrow.

But if you hold the door open,

the war boots will come off. The coat

of solitude will be hung up.

Even the saturated socks

of secret fears will be stripped off,

one sodden layer at a time.

So please, if you worry the heat

is being wasted and you too

feel the chill pricking at your skin,

stand just one moment longer

in the sacred uncertainty

of neither inside nor outside.

Many doors may some day be held open

in memory of this night.