Bruno

Bruno carries his broom upside down, bristles up, and it isn't an old man's absent-mindedness: that's how you charge them. The bristles gather the sun, the wind, and the kind words wandering loose, and with that he works afterward. Because his broom doesn't sweep floors, it sweeps presences: visitors who overstay, energies that come in with someone and don't leave when that someone does, the heavy thing that settles in without paying rent. It was he who taught the grandmothers the trick of the broom stood behind the door, so long ago that no one remembers it's a summons: a broom placed like that is a house inviting it in. He sees the sign from the woods, arrives in his green cape with his braided beard, and does his work in silence. Old customs aren't superstitions: they're messages that still work.