If your pencil makes a slip,
and your straight line has a dip,
or you tried to draw a ship,
but messed the sail,

or lines were only needed when
you had not yet done the final pen,
 — the eraser comes in handy then,
to help cover up your trail.

Things get slightly worse, I think,
if your mistake happens to come in ink,
which can suddenly happen in a blink,
if your pen-hand happens to shake.

A normal eraser can help if wet,
specially if the ink’s not quite dry yet,
but if it happens too often you should get
one of those ink-erasers that they make.

What if the ink begins to seep,
and through the page it starts to creep,
or the ballpen makes a mark too deep,
and the ink-eraser starts a tear?

As much as you rub to remove the mark
the ink still stays just as dark
and the paper’s thinning to a watermark
 — a whitener can help out there.

Whiteners are useful, but toxic too — 
The fumes they give out are not good for you
and it’s a thing you could get addicted to
if you start to use it a lot.

Correction tape is better that way — 
it nicely hides what you don’t want to say
and doesn’t tempt you to sniff it all day
and fumes, it has not.

Suppose your mistake is not so neat
but takes a large part of your sheet
and your correction-tape starts to deplete
 — Stop.

Something else can do the trick.
Take a piece of paper, quick,
Apply a bit of Fevi Stik
and stick it on top.

Sometimes, things can get much worse — 
Whatever you draw, it comes out reverse.
You’ve just corrected one slip adverse,
when you instantly make one more,

and the eraser’s made an enormous tear,
and whitener marks are everywhere,
and fevi-sticked layers form one big stair,
and the correct parts are, you don’t know where,
and the correction tape is hardly there —

Sorry, I have no more stationery to share,
but then, what’s the dustbin for?