FLAUBERT'S COMMA

In one of his letters Flaubert complains –

Or is he boasting? – that he spent the morning

Taking out a comma and the  afternoon

Putting it back in. The afternoon’s comma

Was, I have reason to believe, quite different

From the one removed in the morning.

Disgusted at Flaubert’s treatment,

It had crawled painfully across his desk

To hide in an ink-stain on the blotter.

Ever afterward, when he took inventory,

Flaubert was always one comma short;

It irritated him intensely. George Sand

Offered to give him one of hers;

He politely refused, not letting her see

That the thought of an alien comma

Had brought back his neurasthenia.