Notes from the room
Written at the desk after the door was shut. They are about the cold on Market Street and the soot a poor flame leaves on glass and plaster.
A long wick and the harbor draft
The latch-side gap in the door, a dry cedar jar on the counter, and a carbon cap that caught the wind coming up from the water.
Soot on the ceiling in January
A gray oval on plaster, a ceiling vent that cycles all evening, and a wick that had not been cut since the first night.
A cold jar and the first melt pool
Twenty minutes in a jar that had spent the night in a parked car, and the well the wax refused to leave.
Dry heat on Market Street
Closed rooms, a scent that only seems louder, and a pillar that leans because the baseboard is the warm side.