Threshold (Umbral)

With the last reflections
of the day’s glow,
I wonder
if perhaps there’s been a change
in the rules of matter.

After letting the dog out,
I observe him
from the threshold of my room.
When I see him in the courtyard,
drawing close 

to the large elephant wood gate,
I wonder if he will pass through it...

But I can barely make him out,
as if he were there,
on the periphery of the visible world,
the lines between everything
fading into twilight's shadow.

In these moments,
the ephemeral that sustains
our physical substance
is fluid.
Matter
seems to hold itself together
only by the thread
of a fleeting memory.

—Lorena Wolfman ( 2018, translation 2025)