Dovina; in stanza 9 the lady makes a choice. In stanza 10 she comes to action. The power of this poem (and my voting was rather impulsive) is that her choice can be two quick steps in the wrong direction, or it can also be a choice of hope: two quick steps up and into the bus home. This does not square with YOUR intentions, but you didn't write the poem exclusively for yourself and the people you based the poem on. Otherwise you wouldn't have published it... You wanted to tell the true story, unfortunately some interpretations where 'false', but it doesn't mean that the poem is a failure. It reads like a novel, it has the feel of a film noir. Nothing wrong with that. Messing up autobio's because of muddled feelings intervening? That's an odd thing to say. Don't you realise that the last stanza may not only paint the picture as it is, but at the same time reflects your feelings, your wish that the person dear to you had made a different choice, or choices?

Sorry, I actually meant tagamet. Tagumet is rhymezone.com's misspelling, and I was too lazy to catch it.

Hey, great answer.

Oh. For meat. Guess I should have read the rest of the sentence.

You make your wife wait in line? For what?

Once again you've added the word "merely" to a comment of mine and then proudly pronounced the result preposterous. Of course it's preposterous. To clarify: I find relationships to be many things, one of which is a way to have sex more often (or, at least, with a greater certainty.) To clarify even further: I, as a married man, can be certain of having sex twice a year, perhaps more. You cannot. But enough about me. I'm interested: what other things do you, Dovina, think relationships are if they're not (to use your words) merely a doorway to having sex more often? To judge from your recent poems I imagine your response being "something to support my breasts so I don't trip on them while walking." But don't get me wrong, I am interested in your real answer.

I take your issue over the economy of relationships. Imagine, if you will, an x axis marked $ per shag and a y axis marked time. I believe that given the high initial costs in a relationship with low initial sex count that an immediate release would be cheaper if purchased at say $60 for an hour. In fact, given that relationships also require monthly management fees for dinner, initially contraception, gifts and the fact you can't actually have the filthy sex your require for at least six months purchasing sex from a professional is in fact a more efficient method of obtaining regular, and crucially - satisfactory - release, with greater variety and with professionals who are not rendered incapable once a month due to stuffing themselves with jam rags.

Dovina, you must have realised by now, the way I artfully swagger around leaving damp patches all over poemes, that my virility is in no way an illusion; why I only have to walk past a lady and she will be struck my morning sickness.

I want neither to encourage suicide nor discourage it with this poem. And I want no double ending here. I have strong personal feelings against suicide, but this is not a poem about my feelings. Nor is it autobiographical. What I failed to communicate is that it is a story, a true story. I often think that if a subject is not close to me I can write rather succinctly about it, and that if the subject or the people in the story are close to me, then it muddles within my feelings and comes out wrong. So I think it has come out here. This is a powerful story about love and respect of an old woman who cannot tell it. I am not going to give up very soon in my effort to tell it for her. I appreciate your comments.

I realise this may be rude as it could be autobio-based. But I have outspoken ideas about suicidal people.

Failed? A two-way ending is always nice. Here we have one version to keep readers from committing suicide and one for readers to prompt them

I'm afraid she was not feeling super.

Sorry to give you that impression. As you can see this is a revision of a poem I posted a month ago. Most of the people I showed it to did not understand it then. That upset me because I was making no effort for double meanings or cloudy intent. This revision is an attempt to make the situation clear. It seems I may have failed in my second attempt.

I was hoping for it to be read only one way. There is no effort to conceal the truth of what happened here.

I agree with you. This isn't very good...It's basically a "I havn't written anything in a while and this is my atttempt to start back" piece.