Inventory of a Borrowed Kitchen

The kettle keeps a sound that isn't mine — a low whistle learned from someone's grandmother, patient as a clock in a room with no one in it.

I open drawers and find the alphabet of another life: a wooden spoon worn thin on its left side, a colander freckled with old turmeric, a knife that knows the give of every onion before me.

The window holds the same square of morning it has always held. Light pools on the linoleum like a thing that has agreed, for now, to stay.

I make coffee. The cup is heavier than I expect. Somewhere a previous tenant is also waking, also reaching for what isn't theirs, also surprised by the weight of it.