Inventory of a Borrowed Kitchen

The kettle remembers a hand that isn't mine, its whistle tuned to another morning. I fill it anyway. Water doesn't mind whose thirst it answers.

On the windowsill, a jar of salt has gone soft with weather. Someone left the window cracked the way you leave a door open for the dead — not expecting, exactly. Just in case.

I find a grocery list inside a drawer: milk, onions, the word *try* underlined twice. I wonder what she was trying. I wonder if she got the milk.

The fridge hums its old hymn of preservation. I press my palm against the door and feel the small cold planet keeping something for nobody, keeping it well.

Outside, the neighbor's laundry lifts like a flag for a country of one. I boil the water. I drink. The cup warms both my hands as if it has forgiven me for being new.