Inventory of a Borrowed Kitchen

The previous tenant left a single spoon in the drawer, its bowl scratched soft by years of someone else's morning. I hold it like a question no one asked me to answer.

Above the sink, a window framing nothing but the brick of the next building, where pigeons settle into their grammar of waiting. The faucet hums a note the radiator forgets.

In the cupboard, three mismatched glasses, a saucer with a hairline fracture running the long diameter of its life. I arrange them on the counter the way one arranges evidence.

Tonight I will boil water and call it cooking. The kettle ticks toward its small whistle, and the room, which knows nothing of me yet, leans slightly closer to listen.