I called her name through the crowd.
'It’s me, Rosemary,' I said,
rattling off places and dates.
A soft, uncertain girl
surprisingly steely if pushed
(rebuked my urgent force
after a fit, when I jammed a ruler
hard between her teeth)
she was still plump and pimply
hanging her head.
Finally she lifted her eyes.
'That’s my name, but I don’t know
you or anything you’re talking about.'
[Poem #19]
This began as a game some bloggers played in 2008, to write about people who'd made an impact, in the same number of words as one's age, every day for a year. I did them less often and went on longer, adding one word each birthday. I stopped in 2016 and incorporated them into my main poetry blog. In 2019 I resumed the project and gave it its own blog again, with a new name, where it may unfold at its own (slow, intermittent) pace. I've labelled these verse portraits, but they're more like quick sketches: mere glimpses, impressions....
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