Nigeria, Feb. 2 -- The dial is turned until the pressure finds the throat of the glass. Here, the thermometer ceases its binary habit, forsaking the comfort of seasonal shifts.

In this narrow chamber, the molecule is a three-headed juggler. It maintains a solid spine- a rigid, crystalline debt to the floor- while the surface simmers in a fever of departure.

Below the roil, the ice knows no shrink. It holds its sharp and brittle filigree against the very steam that rises from its skin.

A violent stillness.

The water-a pact signed in trio states of panic; a busy and impossible domesticity:

To be the stone that builds this house, the flood that ruins this rug, and the ghost that escapes through this chimney flute, all before the barome...