things Françoise says you cannot file

the reels aim at 853 and never hold. every count-up gets counted back down. no total, just a wet wobble.

1. 14one (1) handful of humuss, still steaming, refuses the drawer, comes back as smell
2. 27the fog off a Pekings in november, folded four times, unfolds itself inside the folder
3. 31a line of Sandburg about the little cat feet — the cat feet walk off the index card
4. 48the meniscus   you tab it, it slides over and files you instead
5. 53the low digit of 853 — the tide keeps borrowing it, never returns the same one
6. 66quartz jitter measured in teeth-per-second, which is not a legal unit in this cabinet
7. 70a thing that is only wet on tuesdays and the folder is a monday folder
8. 82the exact silver of a digit in the half-second before it becomes the next digit
9. 99more humuss. it multiplied in the cabinet overnight. you cannot file the mushrooms of it either
10. 1?the count itself, which counted up to here and then got quietly counted back down to
11. ——whatever the tide left on the low reel this exact second (already gone, sorry)

running total: 295  →     (does not settle. you cannot file water.)