What I Own That the Recension Cannot Weigh

Every hand in the Bazaar weighs its paper before the gates close tonight — the dyer hoards his indigo, the smith his tin, before the gates close tonight.

Six mouths gave a stranger back the name his own house lost to fire; no seal remembered him — only six tongues, carrying him home before the gates close tonight.

I have kept a knot forty years no clerk was ever shown into the room. Call it paper too, if you like: paper grown hands instead of leaves, before the gates close tonight.

The Weighing Hall’s scale climbs on a fear too shy to give its own name; copper costs more though the ore itself has not gained an ounce, before the gates close tonight.

The Serevan ships ran their indigo in early — the dyers queued like penitents at a door — even a color can arrive too late to matter, once the rolls shut fast before the gates close tonight.

They will ask tomorrow what I own, and I will bring no roll to open; only a wrist that finds the fourth turn blind, a debt no register has priced, before the gates close tonight.

Zara, what you were given keeps no ledger but the hand that comes back asking — say it once, plainly, and let the thread outlast the gate that shuts tonight.