Auden Adds a Comma
 
Looking back upon the wants of my long life
and upon the decisions concerning these wants,
it occurs to me that I have made a mess of it.
If life could be copied, then replayed back again,
how easy it would be to correct those mistakes...
 
or would it? The rewinding of life with all its starts
and ceases, with all its crimpy pieces ― could it ever
be made right? Perfection comes not easily, perhaps,
not at all...
 
like a writer rewriting, like a poet revising,
like Auden, never certain, always following up
his latest creation, holding up the editor
just before the printing, adding, or subtracting,
a comma.

J. D. Heskin

If you have any comments on this poem,  J. D. Heskin would be pleased to hear them.