Life in the Margins

Rising as the sun
My husband and daughter still asleep
To read your thoughts on Gandhi and nonviolence

You worked alone, late into the evening,
Wrestling with words, hoping to please me,
Your only reader

Red pen in hand
I scrawl encouragements when I can
Underline emphatically
Write treatises in the margins
Cross out what I must

Upon the essay's return,
You register only a grade in scarlet

My notations, essential as blood,
A transfusion, a life source
Viewed as wounds, marks to disregard,
Acts of violence