Inventory of a Borrowed Kitchen

The landlord left a single spoon, its bowl tarnished to the color of weak tea, and a colander that has forgotten how to be anything but a cathedral for the small light of late afternoon.

In the drawer, a knife older than the building's bones, its handle worn to the shape of someone else's grip — I hold it and become briefly haunted.

The kettle whistles in a key that doesn't belong to me. The tile remembers feet I never had, the radiator coughs the names of tenants the walls have outlived.

Tonight I cook for one and the steam rises through somebody's prayer, through the ghost of bread, through the long, undivided patience of rooms that learn nothing, and forgive everything.