It took me a second to fall into this. Really, it took me a stanza. The first stanza's abstract images just didn't connect with me, mostly because I didn't think your metaphor was ideal in reflecting the pain of sacrifice.
Then your second stanza started, and I was pulled in the entire way. You had a few really gorgeous descriptions, full of all the images of frustrated youth romance that resonate so deeply in me, that you dragged out:
Quote:
the only traces were dust clouds unsettled by her window
Some moisture on her sleepy cheek and an impression on her pillow
|
Quote:
By sunrise, clouds winked "don't worry, her parents aren't on to us"
But looking back, perhaps those clouds were much more ominous
|
Quote:
|
thinking of what to tell her while I'm pawing off lipstick
|
Quote:
one of us stayed quiet, the other didn't bother to listen
but looking back, who did what becomes a foggy admission
|
Those are such strong passages of writing that it's easy to miss how deft your mechanics were. The rhymes were deep, unique and rarely forced. (OK, I noticed that "calls across the pacific" line and wondered if you really went to Asia.)
So then you returned to your intro for the close. The writing was a bit stronger and more direct and tied in with the verse I just read, which was good. Inherently, I'm a minimalist. I like reading the story without too much comment, and I think I might have preferred this piece had it just been the second, third and fourth stanzas alone. But I did love, "How many apologies does it take to pave over them?" I guess to me the emotion rode higher in the storytelling than the surveyal. But there's definitely a worthwhile removal from the situation that you gain, a detatched understanding of what happened that couldn't be as smoothly told if blended into the storytelling.