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Lists By Claudia Smith The items line the windowsill. All objects are equidistant. They are: A thread of floss smelling of old breath; a dried-up slug; a pressed carnation; a pale yellow sheet of tissue paper; an emerald green marble; a clean cotton anklet. I ask my brother what they are for. He holds the tissue paper up to the light, and looks through it out at the cold blue glass. "It looks like a lemon when you see the sky like this," he says. "Where did you get these things?" But as I ask I know the answer. The carnation was from our mother's yearbook. The tissue paper probably from her craft basket. Maybe he fished the floss out of the garbage, thinking it cleaned her pink gums. But it couldn't be hers. She's been gone too long to leave a trace of warm breath. "It's for our protection," he says. He wraps his knuckles on the peeling woodwork one, two, three times. Three is a good number.

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