(By Andrea Davis Pinkney, from her book, The Red Pencil. This poem seems to be a sort of ode to the inner critic.)
ERASE
At the red pencil’s end
stands a hard lump of clay.
I do not like its green.
So ugly, its green.
And pointy.
A baby snake’s head.
A thistle’s pricker.
A sick fish,
this green.
My speaking is still in snippets.
I ask Old Anwar,
“What to do with this clump?”
He tries to explain.
“An eraser.”
He shows me how
the baby snake’s head
can fade the red’s bright lines,
leaving smears
on the yellow page,
and green dust in its wake.
“Erase,” he says.
“Why erase?” I ask.
“For mistakes,” he says,
still trying to explain.
Mistakes?
My sparrow
sees no mistakes.
My sparrow sees only what
it sees.
Erase?
To me,
that is the mistake—to erase.
Rebecca Kuder 