The Crack

The Crack

The crack opens in March. She mixes lime in a bucket, wets the wall, packs it in with the flat of her trowel.

It opens again in June. Frost, the neighbour says. She says nothing. She mixes lime.

The wall is old. It leans into the wind, into the hill. The crack opens where the lean is deepest. She fills it there.

In September the rain finds it. In December the frost finds it. The crack is patient. It has all the time in the world. She has a bucket and a trowel and the habit of her mother, who filled this crack before her, who learned it from her mother, who learned it from the wall.

She fills it. The wall leans. Tonight the frost will get in. The crack will open again. She will be there with the bucket.