Hello Colin,
I like the idea of this poem, the way you analyse the behaviour of the salesgirl, very much. There are also some very nice phrases - `you lean to me like a flower/collapsing under its own weight of sweetness´ - this is great. But what and I don´t like, and I´m afraid it spoils the poem, is authorial intrusion - `I do not blame you...´, `To lose only this is...´, `So I don´t know why it makes...´. This is what is often called `telling, not showing´. I really think you´ve overstepped the limit here. One way to rectify it might be to remove the `I´ narrator and make the whole thing more objective and distanced. If you can put this right I think you´d have a really good poem.
Best wishes, Mike
--- Alkuperäinen viesti ---
Salesgirl Smile
I do not blame you for your falseness,
your well-conditioned hair,
an ever-willing handshake
and that dazzling smile.
If life must mark us-
coalminer's hands, doctor's health,
you merely stand to lose sincerity.
To lose only this is accomplishment.
So I don't know why it makes me sad
to see that enamelled smile.
Perhaps your radiant glow
is worse than ill-intent,
knows darkness so deep
not even love can escape,
because you lean to me like a flower
collapsing under its own weight of sweetness,
ever-sinking, ever-rising to lift itself
from a colourless despair.
Tokyo, April 1995
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