Inventory of a Borrowed Kitchen

The previous tenant left a single spoon in the drawer, its bowl tarnished to the color of an overcast harbor. I lift it like evidence.

Above the sink, a calendar still marks October — circled days, a name I do not know underlined twice in red. The window holds a square of pigeons.

I boil water for nothing in particular. The kettle remembers its own song, the tile remembers a different foot, and the lightbulb, when it flickers, flickers in someone else's morse.

Tonight I will sleep in a room where the wallpaper has counted each breath of the woman before me. I close my eyes. I borrow her dreams. I leave them folded on the chair.