i have decided that i will be true to myself, and write romantic, silly poems, while writing technically correct, referenced and erudite poetry for professor eliot. it seems to be working out nicely. i am happy conjuring loving images of terri, and others (my north country girl, sigh), and i am equally happy in the library, lost in the world of meter and rhyme. 

i think writers must decide in which world they want to reside. i've yet to decide. i suspect my romantic nature will win out. it always has. 

~~~

i was ten

when i fell deeply in love with diana barry

anne shirley's bosom friend and true kindred spirit 

in anne of green gables

i was very interested in the concept of bosoms

and how they related to friendship

though i was certain that they did in some magical way

i felt certain that if only diana were in my fifth grade class

she would be my bosom friend and kindred spirit

the appeal of diana, beyond her angelic face 

and loyalty to the undeserving anne

was that she was distant, which felt tragic

and tragic seemed wonderful at that age

diana's rosy cheeks and red lips, as i imaged them

and her long, brown, rippling hair

and deep brown eyes describe terri to a t

which may or may not be coincidence

anne never appreciated diana sufficiently to my liking

though she, anne, swore true love and frienship

anne was fixated on a love-hate relationship

with that gilbert blythe, which i couldn't understand

which caused a mysterious disquiet within me

as I fell asleep at night imaging that it was me, not anne,

sharing diana's dramas, i felt an incipient longing

which settled somewhere in regions

yet to be understood, but not to be ignored

alas, it was not to be, all the sighing in the world

wouldn't bring her to me, but ellen was real

as were her grey eyes, she was in my grade

and she liked me, and we wrote notes and exchanged rings

diana and her bosoms drifted out of my life

fifth grade became sixth and then seventh

and the nether region phenomena reached fruition

in gasping, technicolor, over the rainbow fantasies 

so my loves and love life progressed, step by baby step

never easy, always dramatic, culminating

in diana made real in the form of the lovely terri

and her sometimes baby-powdered bosoms