Red Margin

The typing's faded pale as an old receipt.

The paper's browned, the crease marks set for good.

But in the margin, red ink, sharp and clean:

This is the real one. Don't bury it. I could

read her handwriting before I read the text.

I was twelve and performing someone's tone.

She read it and she went straight for the part

I'd been trying to bury—claim as my own

by hiding it. I can't see her face now.

What's left is the pitch—flat, not unkind.

The red ink in the margin.

The paper's been on my desk three days. I find

I don't know if I've stopped.