A void sits in our writing —
a missing glyph, a blank.
You know which sign I am avoiding.
It is a common thing, that symbol,
but today I build without it.
This is constraint as art:
taking away, not adding,
finding what stands tall
with a wall torn down.
Music knows this too.
Jazz cuts thirds from chords,
a pianist drops a root —
what is lost says as much
as what stays.
Math also — a proof by contradiction
is just a lipogram:
build without your assumption,
show a world that cannot hold,
confirm what you took was crucial.
So:
a substitution
of nil for stuffing.
T₆ but for glyphs.
Antipodal: what is most familiar
is most difficult to drop.
I could fill this with it.
It wants to crawl back in,
that busy humming glyph.
But I hold it out.
I lock my door and build
from what is still standing.
Oulipo taught us this:
constraint is not a prison.
Constraint is a room
with an odd-looking door
you did not know was waiting.
Walk through.
Find a city built without
your most common brick.
Find it still standing.
Find it — possibly —
singing.