Correction Fluid

His name was in the local news,

listed between the births and the dead.

A donation to the library, a quiet use

of the same hand that bled my pages red.

I found the Gatsby in a cardboard box.

He’d slashed the first page, corner to corner,

no notes, no advice, just the clinical shocks

of a man who acted as my own personal mourner.

I can still smell the wet wool of his coat

and the yellow chalk on his navy cuff,

as he killed every word I ever wrote

because I was never quite enough.