0 (Zero): A fallow garden bed after first snow. The womb once a child is born. Also, a placeholder: an empty shelf in the fridge, tiny yellow socks tucked in a drawer. Zero may be plural, as in zeroes, as in the tree has no plums, no blossoms. One tree could have infinite numbers of no blossoms. Zero can hide beneath a presence: a dead battery, a hollowed out walnut shell, the stillborn child cradled in his mother’s arms. Zero is not the same as O. As in Oh, I’m so sorry. Or Oh no. O is a perfect circle, 0 is a perfect nothingness. Likewise, zero implies uselessness: the mother sits in a broken rocking chair. Here, zero also means despair. Drawn with a pencil, the center is missing.