Inventory of a Borrowed Kitchen

The previous tenant left a single fork in the drawer, tines bent slightly upward as if it had been used to pry something stubborn from a small dark place.

I find her grocery list folded into the cookbook— buttermilk, allspice, the word "candles" underlined twice. The handwriting slopes the way wheat does before a storm, all leaning toward something it cannot reach.

Mornings, the radiator wakes before I do, ticking out its private alphabet. The window keeps a smudge in the shape of a forehead pressed against the cold.

I cook with her salt. I burn the same corner of the same pan. Whoever she was, she watered the basil until it learned to lean toward the sink, toward the long pale rectangle of light.

Tonight I'll eat with her fork. The bent tines will lift the rice the way a hand lifts an old letter— gently, knowing the paper has gone soft as the body that once held it.