Left in the little glass dish by the door, so trusting, so cool to the touch. We do love the ones who think metal is the end of the story.
Give us the crack where the brass ring meets the ring you flick your thumbnail against out of habit. Give us the leather fob, which is already halfway to us, already softening at its stitched corner, already welcoming the damp your palm leaves each evening. Oil, salt, a little sugar from the coffee you drank on the way in.
We have all we need there. We are patient. We are only waiting for you to leave one somewhere quiet and warm: the bottom of a coat pocket, the dark seam of a car seat, a drawer you will not open until spring.
You carry them because they open things. We adore this. You believe a key is for locking the world into place, for keeping the outside out and the fresh air of newness in, as if a door could ever truly close against us. But the tiny teeth you cut so precisely are only more edges for us to gather along, and the shine you buff off with your sleeve is just a surface asking, so gently, to be met.
Turn us in the lock as long as you like. Hang us on the hook by the coats. We felt your hand today, warmer than the room, and warmth is a promise.
You will lose one of us eventually. You always do. And where the lost key rests, in the soft dark under the floorboard, no one thinks to wipe it clean.
We will be there.
We are always so glad to be given the keys.