Enamored with the Em Dash
When I see the em dash--
that most versatile of punctuation marks--
I can’t help but fall in love.
So unapologetic in the amount of space it consumes
like someone manspreading on the subway,
the em dash is the grammatical version
of a modern-day Renaissance man.
And after several failed relationships,
my question for you—dear reader—is this:
Why not? Why couldn’t I make this work?
I can see Em and I driving to meet my parents,
waxing philosophical on those winding country roads.
We’ll talk about things that make life worth living:
Oxford commas, who versus whom, and split infinitives.
Em will occupy the car’s entire backseat
because of his unforgiving width, but that’s okay.
We’ll stop at every rest area so he can stretch his long body.
Yes, it will take time for people to adjust.
At first, my parents won’t understand his special diet
of commas and hyphens and parentheses,
but they’ll come around.
Eventually, we’ll get married and have children--
little dashes. We’ll spoil them with their favorite things--
groups of words, number ranges, compound adjectives.
But that’s when things will turn sour. We’ll start arguing.
He’ll work late into the night, lobbying for the addition
of an em dash button on computer keyboards. And I’ll get it--
I will—he’s trying to save the world; can’t blame him for that.
It’s his jealousy that will really do us in.
You use too many semicolons, he’ll say.
You’re cheating, aren’t you? Who is he?
Is it that comma you work with, the one who paused
when you told him you were married? What does he have
that I don’t? And then I’ll start thinking about the comma,
about its gentle curve, its diminutive and unassuming size,
its authority. I’ve always been attracted to jerks, after all.
We’ll get divorced. And one day
we’ll both look back and wonder what went wrong,
realizing that we didn’t create enough space between us,
like too many run-on sentences.
that most versatile of punctuation marks--
I can’t help but fall in love.
So unapologetic in the amount of space it consumes
like someone manspreading on the subway,
the em dash is the grammatical version
of a modern-day Renaissance man.
And after several failed relationships,
my question for you—dear reader—is this:
Why not? Why couldn’t I make this work?
I can see Em and I driving to meet my parents,
waxing philosophical on those winding country roads.
We’ll talk about things that make life worth living:
Oxford commas, who versus whom, and split infinitives.
Em will occupy the car’s entire backseat
because of his unforgiving width, but that’s okay.
We’ll stop at every rest area so he can stretch his long body.
Yes, it will take time for people to adjust.
At first, my parents won’t understand his special diet
of commas and hyphens and parentheses,
but they’ll come around.
Eventually, we’ll get married and have children--
little dashes. We’ll spoil them with their favorite things--
groups of words, number ranges, compound adjectives.
But that’s when things will turn sour. We’ll start arguing.
He’ll work late into the night, lobbying for the addition
of an em dash button on computer keyboards. And I’ll get it--
I will—he’s trying to save the world; can’t blame him for that.
It’s his jealousy that will really do us in.
You use too many semicolons, he’ll say.
You’re cheating, aren’t you? Who is he?
Is it that comma you work with, the one who paused
when you told him you were married? What does he have
that I don’t? And then I’ll start thinking about the comma,
about its gentle curve, its diminutive and unassuming size,
its authority. I’ve always been attracted to jerks, after all.
We’ll get divorced. And one day
we’ll both look back and wonder what went wrong,
realizing that we didn’t create enough space between us,
like too many run-on sentences.