a small substance · slow to give
Wax is the slow thing. It accepts heat, then it accepts cold. It accepts a seal, then it carries it. It accepts a wick, then it gives, very slowly, light.
In the labyrinth, wax appears most often as a smell — in the parlour after a rain, or in the apiary in late summer, or on the corner table where the household keeps its small store of red sealing wax for letters that genuinely require sealing.
field note · the seal on a sealed letter is a record of which hand pressed it. the wax remembers that pressure for as long as the wax exists.