What Thirty Years Will Not Sell for Marks Eleven Four

A house may buy its silence outright — coin enough, no more — and the ledger keeps only the sum, not the hand that paid it; even a drought-thinned well still keeps

what little rain it’s given, and never once explains the giving. I have sold a blue this bright before, plainly, at full price — nothing folded under it that keeps.

But there is a gate that costs no marks at all and still stood shut a lifetime; she told me half a sentence once, and where the other half went, only she keeps.

I did not try the latch. Some doors deserve the mercy of a stranger’s patience — the hand that reaches twice for what was offered once forgets what waiting keeps.

My own vat holds a color no customer has priced, not hidden and not sold — the way a throat holds back a name not ready yet to spend; some silence keeps.

A bond can buy a house its lawful quiet, marks and seal and clerk’s own hand — but coin has never once purchased what a woman’s own choosing keeps.

Three streets and thirty years, she said, and stopped the sentence there, exactly there — Zara, who prices every dye but her own, knows what that kind of nothing keeps.