Ranger10 Jul 2006

The points already made are the fundamental improvements, but I'd also say a couple of other things. In a 'story poem' (like this one), a good way to make it less storylike and more poetic is to reduce the temporal references ('now', 'then', 'next' etc.) and just let the order in which you tell the story show the sequence of events. This will automatically trim the word limit, too.
As Dovina says, don't just show us everything. Stanza 7 is unnecessary - let us work out that she's thinking of the past.
Stick with the writing, it's good to see that you're enthusiastic about it and, of course, we'll always leave you a few hints here.