9 Full Stop
I didn’t choose to stop. No choice was made.
I just didn’t open it next evening, or the one after.
The evenings went to the tool, as for months, and stayed.
Nobody noticed, me included, thereafter.
The wall above my desk stayed empty. There
The pin holes still are, in pairs. And then, from Red,
The email quoting line six hundred and twelve, where,
Having read the README twice, he asked, instead,
“Is there a book in here?” He meant the three
Years, and the tool, and me. I said I didn’t know,
Then started this one, which is how I’d see.
The first night, I ran the tool on it. Little to show,
It found one problem, with its chapter and its line:
This book said “eleven chapters”. This book has nine.
I just didn’t open it next evening, or the one after.
The evenings went to the tool, as for months, and stayed.
Nobody noticed, me included, thereafter.
The wall above my desk stayed empty. There
The pin holes still are, in pairs. And then, from Red,
The email quoting line six hundred and twelve, where,
Having read the README twice, he asked, instead,
“Is there a book in here?” He meant the three
Years, and the tool, and me. I said I didn’t know,
Then started this one, which is how I’d see.
The first night, I ran the tool on it. Little to show,
It found one problem, with its chapter and its line:
This book said “eleven chapters”. This book has nine.
The tool, which I had built for Full Stop, and had run
On Full Stop a thousand times, had flagged as wrong
Full Stop’s own number. I looked a while; then, in one
Line of a note, I told it where that count did belong:
Another book. That note was the first I fed
The tool, of Full Stop, that wasn’t a gripe. I ran
It once again: nothing. As the preface said,
This book was written with the tool. Since it began,
It read each night each chapter, through and through,
Against what the book had promised, and would show
Me when one disagreed. Several times, it’s true,
It told me. I fixed most of them. And so:
A tool built to avoid a book can still be how a book gets finished.
It just isn’t the book it was built for.
On Full Stop a thousand times, had flagged as wrong
Full Stop’s own number. I looked a while; then, in one
Line of a note, I told it where that count did belong:
Another book. That note was the first I fed
The tool, of Full Stop, that wasn’t a gripe. I ran
It once again: nothing. As the preface said,
This book was written with the tool. Since it began,
It read each night each chapter, through and through,
Against what the book had promised, and would show
Me when one disagreed. Several times, it’s true,
It told me. I fixed most of them. And so:
A tool built to avoid a book can still be how a book gets finished.
It just isn’t the book it was built for.
Full Stop has eleven chapters. It still does.
Chapter four still credits its shop, and nine
Still credits the rival, all just as it was;
The footnotes still point at each other, down the line.
I’ve stopped minding. The shoeboxes are in a closet. There,
In one of them, is the card from behind the radiator, I know;
I’m still not sure where. Last week, Hedda turned her chair
Away from her monitor, with four minutes to go,
And asked how the book was.
Chapter four still credits its shop, and nine
Still credits the rival, all just as it was;
The footnotes still point at each other, down the line.
I’ve stopped minding. The shoeboxes are in a closet. There,
In one of them, is the card from behind the radiator, I know;
I’m still not sure where. Last week, Hedda turned her chair
Away from her monitor, with four minutes to go,
And asked how the book was.
“Which one?”
I said.
I said.
She wrote that down.