a list maintained out of habit, not hope
a coin found on a stairwella phone left to ringthe green hour second-hand bookssecond-hand smokesecond cousinssecond thoughts winter light on a kitchen floorthe gaze of a tired doga song you cannot find again somebody else's argument heard through a wallthe pause before a sneeze aluminumfluorescent tubes failingthe smell of wet pavement folded laundryunfolded laundrya thing you can't say to your father the four o'clock sunelevators that hesitateelevators that don't museums after closingshops before openingairports at 3 am a moth on a screena screen with no mothgraffiti you partially understand the conviction you have lived this hour beforethe conviction you have not tax returnslove lettersboth, simultaneously, on a kitchen table swallowingthe second swallowswallows above a chimney copperbrassthe difference between them in your hand a sweater that smells like another countrya country that smells like a sweater milk added before teatea added before milkstrong opinions about this a typing error you cannot findfinding it laternot finding it at all walking past your former homenot looking uplooking up a fly trapped in a hot cara fly that escapesnot knowing which it was buying paperbuying more papernot writing on any of it the colour of an old bruisethe colour of fresh bread libraries you have stood inside without readinglibraries you have not stood inside but have remembered well three notes on a pianothe silence between them a magazine left in the raina phone number that no longer connects tomatotomato in winternot knowing why this is sadder the body of a wasp in a windowsillnot removing it for a week knowing where the keys areknowing they are not where you remember two cigarettes left in a packthrowing away the pack cul-de-sacsroundaboutsroadworks swearing in a language not your own train windows at nightyour reflection looking backa town beyond your reflection a thing your sister said in 1996 the moment the rain stopsthe moment before a fountain pena fountaina pen boiled eggspeeled and unpeeled a kettle that nearly whistles watching someone else's child for a moment the inside of an envelopethe inside of another envelope folding a napkin without thinking realising you are fortyrealising you are not forty standing in a doorway tying shoelacesuntying shoelacesthe way a knot becomes inevitable not finishing a glass of wine looking up at a building you used to enter a name you have not used in years a chair pulled out for someone who never arrives the long pause in a conversation the short one everything that is also nothing
— and one thing missing.