No Rubber, Or, The Fixed Line

It was just a word, a wrong one,

a slip. A quick fix, I thought.

Turned the pencil, like you always done,

but it was wood, blunt, had no spot.

No soft pink to scrub away the crime,

no give, no chance to make it new.

Just dark, worn wood, proof of time,

and a mistake I couldn’t undo.

So I pressed harder, a thick, ugly cross,

right through the error, a violent score.

But it's still there, a lingering loss,

more noticeable now than before.

And I stared at that point, black and fine,

this rigid truth, this permanent mark.

No changing it back. Just this fixed line.

Always, always, left in the dark.