She was on MySpace
friend of friends.
We wanted to be
real friends not just listed;
but....
The poem she wrote at 10
thrilled me —
its rhythms,
its message,
its everything: perfect.
I praised, she dismissed.
The adult work
I couldn’t like.
All intellectual
wordplay, I thought,
clever for the sake.
Others admired, enthused;
the fault, no doubt, was mine.
Suddenly she’s gone.
Don’t even
remember her last name.
(Sad.)
[Poem #87]
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....