Making a Mark

by Michael Dylan Welch

First published in Frogpond 49:2, Spring/Summer 2026, page 134. Originally written in March of 2026. See also “Mark My Words,” also about punctuation.

adoption paperwork

a closing parenthesis

missing

another compound modifier

without a hyphen

unstated

in the attorney’s argument

a question mark

the proofreader

scanning for apostrophes

curly or straight

no, that’s not

what a colonoscopy is for

like everyone else

my password ends

with an exclamation mark