A.

there is an old man
dragging an old door
down the old road
and he stops
in front
of the old farmhouse

he shouts at me
in a language
that sounds
simultaneously
like tin foil
crumbling
and bubble wrap
popping

when I get closer
to the old man
and the old
door by
the old road

I notice that he
isn't so much
an old man

as he is a pair of old overalls
sewn into the old road
and two shoes
blown across the gravel
by a fierce and mighty wind

he tells me that I may
choose to open
the old door and step

into a single manuscript
that has been traveling
from Verona
for some 1400 years

B.

there is a version of me
standing in the upstairs
window with the old
woman with old
white hair and
and old white dress

watching the other version
of me with the old man
by the old door
in the old road

she tells me
that if the other
version of me leaps
through the old door
he will remain only
another clue
fragmentary
and incomplete

and that even though
the other version
of me
is capable
of the most refined
and lovely language

there is much
that is apparent
below the surface

though we may not all
make it out
in the same way