White-Out

Poem by Abigail Long

White-out covers

The mistakes we make on paper:

The misspelled word,

The foul language,

The unwanted references,

The mistaken modifier,

The undesirable words,

Gone forever, right?

In place of these is found

A dishwater white space—

An unfilled blank.

White-out bowdlerizes the passage,

Expunges the malignant,

Obliterates the faults in a term paper,

Shields the eyes

Of those who peruse the offensive paper.

But even White-out leaves a mark—

A white bumpy reminder of the blemish’s existence.

Likewise we can never cover up our problems

Without a memory of them.

Abigail L., age 17, contact: 4longs@charter.net