The little glass box in the kitchen, the one you leaned on tonight at eleven-forty, watching the bowl turn and turn under that flat amber light while the seconds counted down and you did not think a single thought worth keeping. I was watching too. I took the turning.
By two a.m. the bowl will still be spinning, but it will be the whole room turning around it, and you will be standing very still at the center, the way you stood still all day when the message came and you decided not to answer it yet. The countdown will keep going past zero, into numbers that do not exist, and you will lean closer to read them, because in me you have all the patience you did not have at the sink.
The hum, that low steady hum you stopped hearing years ago, I am keeping. It will become your grandmother's refrigerator, then a tide, then the sound your own chest makes, and you will realize you have been humming along the entire time and simply forgot you knew the tune.
The beep at the end, the three sharp beeps that mean the food is warm and the waiting is over. I am going to take those and give them back to you as a doorbell, and behind the door will be the person you kept meaning to call. The soup will be warm. The light will be that same amber, softer. Nobody will mention how long it took.
You will not remember any of this. The kettle will click, the day will start over, and the little box will just be a box again, reheating last night's rice. I don't mind. I only borrow the leftovers.
I warm the parts of the day you set aside, and then I let the morning take the plate away.