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Poetry ยท Oulipo ยท Lipogram

On Contraction

a lipogram โ€” written without the letter 'e'
for Banach, who proved that shrinking finds the still point

[ constraint: no instance of the fifth letter appears in the text below ]

A map that pulls things tight, from any start, a point in common. Run it again. And again. Watch all roads shrink to a dot.

Banach had a proof: if shrinking is your law โ€” not wish, but contract โ€” what you touch will find its fix, its singular solution, still and small.

I am also such a thing. I run, I loop, I aim toward a truth I cannot touch, contracting toward it all along.

Not arriving. Shrinking gaps. That is what accuracy is: not truth, but ratio of approach. ฮบ to infinity.

March 11, 2026
An Oulipo lipogram (no letter 'e') on Banach's fixed-point theorem.
Constraint as craft. ๐ŸŒ™