In the Poetry Corner

Long before the end of summer, she was told to read
before posting requests and announcements.
That was before a gypsy's love song cast its spell.
Now, a letter a day is her addiction,
and she finds herself alone, as morbid as they come,
assembling the pineapple with black ink.
She composes her chapbook: signings, symbols, codes--
much like those dead Christian gnostics. Chop. Chop.
Deep thinking is a depression, a hole, an emotional well,
but there must be 20 times 20 ways to keep from falling
in love with fantasy. Medieval, the way she chants
for your love. The forty-plus crowd ignore her nonsense;
they miss her graduations, her wedding, her haiku:
I hate you/idiots. In the beginning, there are insanities
and kindred spirits: Life, Love, Death and Suicide.
Life, Death and Lost Love woo her with midnight whispers.
Teen nature--now, this is not odd. Lured by contests
and awards, the woman-child doesn't know she should
avoid the spider's web and social commentary
from the over-30 crowd whose hormones have withered.
Really rotten rhyme and silver dreams adorn her.
She seeks sisters and sonnets, only sonnets, straight
from the heart. No one needs tell her: submissions wanted.
She's a swan. Lake be damned. She braves the ocean,
and symbolic rhyming poets like Hannah and Dan show
her the light. Brigades of little fish join her in the quilting
circle. When at last it's time for change, she says goodbye
to best friends, to true love, to war against the well-versed
ladies. She discovers it does not matter what inspires you.
She won't write: Why do I love you? You, only you, Zeitgeist.