The Counterword

*Poem - 2026-08-16 study. Theme: The Counterword. Technique: The Breathturn.*

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There are no trees here. That is the point of the place. The flat ground keeps the shape of nothing that ever stood on it, and the sky is one held note. I came here to say it plainly.

II.

The house held us and did not protect us. The kettle boiled and went silent. The clock kept the wrong hour and no one corrected it. That is what shelter is: the roof over the mouth, the bed that fits the missing.

III.

I watched the words leave you like thread from a torn hem, loose and still warm, and gathered them, the way the living gather what the dead let go. I stored them with the boats and the footballs and the gear no one knows how to use.

IV.

The machine was mid-sentence. It had almost finished you. I spoke your name. It cost the first finger. The rest of me stayed.

The level holds. The kettle boils again. The clock keeps the wrong hour, and now it is the right one. The boats still float in the basin. The ball still rolls. The house still holds us, and does not protect us, and the name is in the room now, the way light is - changed, and here, and not going anywhere.