I live in stone and glass. A cubical hotel. Well, Only half. Never seen the far. Who has? The sole portal between hemitels is through a hearth! A grille half-hides that unknown side. There is no fire Yet flagstone shadows flicker-flow. A gold glow hints how the hidden half lives. Platonic tease! Daily comes a girl who vaults the grate, ducks below stark mantel-slab and the black flue, to slip through unfire as I could never. Mundane, I lack her spell. Or is that true? I've never doubted my taboo. But knowing the whole is my soul-desire. What if I followed her through the hemifire?

NOTES IN THE MORNING

• The magical hotel: I hear echoes of a dream-poem I like by Nicholas Christopher, After a Long Illness.
• Hearth as portal:
  1. Plato's parable of the cave. Trapped in this darkness, we see only shadows of the real world outside.
  2. The Floo Network in the Harry Potter books--a quick but unsettling teleportation through fireplaces.
• Mysterious other half: Dreams? Spirit world? Plato's world of ideals? Or... the WAKING world? This was a dream, so wasn't I lodged in the dream half? Then the far side really might be that crazy realm of undreams! At least the mantel didn't say "All Hope Abandon, Ye Who Enter Here". And that girl came back all right each day.

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