Proofreader's Marks

Now I am in receipt of 62 pages of chicken scratch, brilliant interventions like ants on PDF scroll. Insert hair space. Begin new paragraph. Move right. Move left. It's a marching band of squiggles. But, really, I am grateful for the all-seeing eyes of a editor who knows too the music inside the lines, despite the marks of which there are many. He points out that it's the vases that never empty of water, not the roses. Although I must admit the image in my mind now of yellow roses with petals full of damp curiously conjures the springy touch of aloe vera broken from its home before you slice it open, releasing the balm to apply to a scrape.

I read the margin's menu carefully, a page at a time, remembering another language, that of the proofreader's marks.

From The Shape of Caught Water:
This morning the mourning dove's call, overridden
by far off traffic sounds, I walk the hallway with

fingertips on the walls, braille in surrender.

What will arrive next are concrete and hammers.

Taut wire to hold us together. Press down on the

tongue, and respect one another.

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