lib/PublicInbox/DSdeflate.pm | 4 ++--

diff --git a/lib/PublicInbox/DSdeflate.pm b/lib/PublicInbox/DSdeflate.pm
index b5208e4368abd63626cf617eda1bd4ba4f00fb08..bf0ecd3877c79295ed99c90c0e2f750f730b6bfe 100644
--- a/lib/PublicInbox/DSdeflate.pm
+++ b/lib/PublicInbox/DSdeflate.pm
@@ -27,10 +27,10 @@ 	-AppendOutput => 1,
 );
 
 # global deflate context and buffer
-my $zbuf = \(my $buf = '');
-my $zout;
+my ($zout, $zbuf);
 {
 	my $err;
+	$zbuf = \(my $initial = ''); # replaced by $next in zflush/write
 	($zout, $err) = Compress::Raw::Zlib::Deflate->new(
 		# nnrpd (INN) and Compress::Raw::Zlib favor MemLevel=9,
 		# the zlib C library and git use MemLevel=8 as the default