In a message to S, I described how aware I have become, when writing, of my tendency simply to name the people I’m reading, a tendency I tried to explain through the value (both the false and coercive value and the real, true value) in these times of drawing attention to the things outside of oneself that one likes or finds important. I signed off: “Sometimes I think of writing as just pointing.”

I am not exactly a writer, mind you. Sometimes I try to write.

I typed the message on my phone from behind the bar the day I’d been called in to work unexpectedly. It was the third I had written to S without receiving a reply; it might, I figured, be the last.

I didn’t worry I would be taken for a stalker. I worried I would be taken, by someone who wasn’t inclined or ready to address me, for who I am.

As I hit Send, the door opened, letting in a blast of cold air: Margaret, who walked up and down Main Street every afternoon from five to five thirty, an aluminum cane in one hand and a handful of braided pleather bracelets in the other.

“You wanna buy one?” she asked, as always, her voice a soft, high, syrupy thing. I held up my left wrist, as always, to show the two that I wear there, stacked. “No more room on my arm!” I said—as always—and handed a can of raspberry seltzer over the counter, invited Margaret to sit, received a wave and an “O.K., thanks, bye!” in reply—and she was gone.

So I point: Winnicott (D. W., on mothering); Lorde (on anger); Sedgwick (on love); Klein, post-Klein; Ahmed (on being a problem); Delaney (on desire); Brand (D., on theory); Berlant (on optimism); Butler (O., also J.); James (W., on reality); Laplanche (on aggression); Winnicott (Clare, the wife).

Sometimes I ask a question while I’m pointing. For example: “How can eros and philia and agape gather together in a world that is characterized by fantasy but also, necessarily, shared?” A friend heard Moten speak for hours and, when I asked about it, paused: “He said gather.”

How can anyone gather in a world that is characterized by fantasy but also shared?

I discovered Clare Winnicott only by accident while looking up her husband. She has a page on Wikipedia, a few paragraphs long. It tells me that “besides publishing some sixteen articles in her own right, she worked with, inspired, married, and edited the writings of D. W. Winnicott.” It tells me that one of her articles is titled “Children Who Cannot Play.”

“Worked with, inspired, married, and edited,” I read aloud, attempting with my tongue to push the terms apart.