Inventory of a Borrowed Kitchen

The kettle belongs to no one I have met. Its whistle is a stranger's question I have learned to answer in the dark.

On the windowsill, a jar of salt older than my lease, older than the names I have given the cracks above the sink. The faucet drips in a meter that is almost a heartbeat, almost mine.

I eat standing up, the way light does, swallowing slow rectangles from the floor. A spoon I did not buy finds my mouth like a habit some other body left behind.

When the radiator coughs awake at dusk it sounds like the previous tenant calling her cat by a soft, two-syllable name. I keep meaning to learn it. I keep meaning to leave.