Sandy Solomon: Grammar Lout

Few anymore remain who know

what an apostrophe is for

or so it seems to some of us,

half schooled ourselves in parts of speech,

.

who nonetheless recoil to see

plural’s placed possessively

and then the other way around,  

possessives mark just overlooked. 

.

Liz thinks we ought to have a day

devoted to apostrophes

in which we add or rub them out

in bands of roving grammar louts.

.

Imagine how I’d smear the chalk

from all those signs in Berwick Street

scrawled near piles of fruit and veg:

tomato’s, cucumber’s, and beet’s,

.

and how I’d roam down Oxford Street,

magic marker tight in hand,

to doctor all those printed signs,

like “LONDONS BEST DRESSED PEOPLE WEAR.”

.

And its, my God, the it’s I’d change

(snickers, chortles as I’d work).

Red pencil this, red pencil that.

Sometimes a curl, sometimes a scratch.

.

And that’s before I’d turn my mind

to sorting out the places where

the sweet subjunctive’s gone astray.

Imperative that someone care.

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Copyright 2019 Sandy Solomon