I hit the spot.
I marked it with a dot.
It\'s my spot—
An \'X\' ringed.
A bullseye claimed,
filled with jet black ink—
Not a blot with rough edges that seep out,
but one with a sharp outer perimeter.
It\'s a point pretending it has a yard of space around it,
on its own plot of land, casting no shadows.
I shift a bit; neighbors start crowding in.
\"Stop Right There!\"
\"It\'s my spot you\'re on!\"
I feel the canvas moving under my spot,
or is it all the jostling moving me — page, plot and all?
Now I\'m bouncing in a crowded jumping castle.
Dots blurring into one another.
Stippled footprints mark where spots once stood;
touching down elsewhere — here, there, otherwise.
I\'ve lost the plot; I\'ve lost my spot.
Just another orphaned dot,
set adrift, looking for a margin to belong in.
on a slate, forever being wiped clean.
I clamp down and dig in my heels.
Crampons bite into the ice floe.
Punctuation halts the slide,
puts its foot down—
my comma sheds its tail, and holds.