The Made Absence

I counted what I would name for you: the accordion man and his fixed pitch, the fish seller's first hour, the busker who plays one string, the woman who sells her voice on tape, plain toast at the counter, warm oil, the brass bell of the five o'clock church, the man who repaints the same boat, a hundred blue chairs at the shore, the boy who asks for nothing, twice.

Name it, name it, name it. All of it. Then:

when you come to my street, bring nothing back to me. Walk past the house. Wave, and keep walking.

---

after Zora Neale Hurston's porch, Nuno Canavarro's erasure, Dorthe Nors's freezer-chest, Ada Limón's list that dies into a request, and Wangechi Mutu's unanswering listener. The thing withheld is the welcome.