No Correction

The proctor set it on the desk

without looking at me.

Yellow pencil, number two,

the ferrule at the end bare metal—

the eraser gone or never there.

I didn't check until I needed it.

Fourteen questions in I filled in B

and looked down.

Just the ring of aluminum.

A small hollow where the rubber should have been.

I thought about raising my hand.

The proctor stood by the window,

arms crossed, watching the parking lot.

I thought about the envelope,

how it would travel from this room

to a scanner to a score,

carrying the wrong answer the way a bag carries water—

it doesn't ask what's inside.

I left it. Finished the rest.

Pressed the bare ferrule to the page twice more

out of habit, the way you try a door

you already know is locked.

It left a small gray circle each time.

Not a correction.

Just the shape of where one used to be.

The answer underneath still wrong.