Inventory of a Borrowed Apartment

The kettle keeps a small grief in its spout, a whistle bent from someone else's mornings. I boil water for tea I don't drink, just to hear a stranger's appetite cleared.

In the drawer, three keys to nothing. A receipt for tulips, dated June. A button the color of wet slate, waiting for the shirt that lost it.

The window faces a courtyard where pigeons rehearse the same argument. A child below is naming the puddles: this one Ocean, this one Sleep, this one Father.

At night the radiator speaks in the language of distant trains. I lie still and learn its grammar, the long vowels of iron cooling, the consonants of someone else's warmth.

I am only here a little while. The walls have memorized other voices. When I leave, I will leave the cup half-rinsed, the way I found it — a small dishonesty, a kind of rent.