In the text on that first page, there was a space before the /em at the very end. When I removed that space, the problem disappeared. I have no idea why, but as long as it’s gone, I’m happy.
I found a quick fix. A /em at the beginning of the first item solves it for now, which makes me think I need to look at the source for the page and see if I’m missing that /em somewhere else.
