by Sarah Jane Gilliam
Meet me in the ellipsis.
I’m breaking out my tools.
I’ve lost you somewhere in the typography,
and I have to circumvent the rules.
I won’t find you in the question marks;
the answers are so obtuse.
So, will you meet me in the ellipsis?
I think it’s a reasonable truce.
The dashes are overly emphatic–
they’ll pause my search too long.
The ellipsis is a middle ground–
where I don’t mind if punctuation is wrong.
I thought I saw you in a parenthetical,
but you’re not an afterthought.
Everything here is hypothetical;
explanations are not sought
(and even though it’s hypocritical,
I don’t care if we get caught).
Brackets are just pretentious
{I’d never find you there}.
We’d have to choose which kind to use
[and neither of us care].
Hyphens might have been a better choice
to avoid ambiguity.
Even so, I’m such a know-it-all
that I’ll use my own acuity.
I hunted through the quotation marks
so I could remember “everything” we said.
But I’m not looking for accuracy;
I prefer the version in my head.
The superscripts and exponents
seem obvious in my quest;
though hiding in plain sight
would make you like the rest
(and you won’t settle for 2nd best).
The carets and the asterisks
just lead to other thoughts,
and I’ll never ever find you
falling down rabbit hole plots.*
Exclamation points are far too loud
for us to stick around!
So just meet me in the ellipsis
where we’ll both feel safe and sound.
In the ellipsis, we can hesitate,
omit the words that we don’t want.
Our story doesn’t have to end,
but we can choose to change the font.
Once you meet me in the ellipsis,
we won’t worry about full stops.
The rules never really mattered,
but we can use them as backdrops.
Meet me in the ellipsis
where there’s nothing to keep us fraught.
We can bide our time and end this rhyme
Not with periods but with…
*See Lewis Carroll.