What Kept Dividing

They had drawn the line at sixty— membranes of our kind should soften there, give up their rooms.

They went looking in the famous pools and found it in a thin tributary nobody had named for heat.

In the flask the degrees climbed. At sixty-three it still cut itself in two. At sixty-four it was still moving toward what it eats.

The rule was a careful rule until something ordinary kept the rooms.