[David Callin]

I really like this too, John. It seems like a brimming frozen moment (although I know there's movement in it). My first reading was of your revision, and your new last line worked very nicely for me there.

Your details are well chosen.

Just a quick word from our correspondent at Pedants' Corner: I'm assuming "panning" should be "planning". Not an over-bold assumption, I'd have thought.

But a lovely poem anyway.

Cheers

David

[W T Clark]

I think it's wonderful, John.
"Now we must make a decision" what a wonderful arc into the vertical. I think you are far into your project of making things that have removed the "poetical" glitter of language and yet are poetry in their hard crystalline truthfulness. I think the revision masters the last line but I wouldn't advise for much more.
Hope this helps.

[Brandon Hyer]

For what it’s worth I preferred the original ending

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Carl Copeland]

I was getting ready to grumble about the last line again, but I see you’ve got a new one up, and this one I can only contemplate in silence. True, I would have expected “there” rather than “here,” but that’s because I’m standing in front of a canvas, and “here” puts me inside the picture (or brings her out), which is probably the idea.

[R. Nemo Hill]

Yes, this is quite great, John, though I prefer Carl's idea of changing the last word from here to there. The form here is particularly fresh, those unpunctuated single sentence lines. It telegraphs your oft-professed desire for a poetry that contains absolutely nothing unnecessary, and raises an interesting paradox: that pure necessity here is really carried by the form rather than the content, for the content is all circumstantial, all evanescent, yet the form presents it in a way in which nothing distracts us from what it is. We are drawn in by the sound of your voice, yes, but we are not drawn in to that voice, we are drawn in only to the picture that voice paints. That is not easy to do: to direct the reader invisibly.

Even the title is nakedly frank, and yet its depth seems infinite.

And I agree with Cameron about this transition: "Now we must make a decision". How lovely, as a reader, to be included in that moment by the word "we".

I would study your own hard-working intuitions in this one.

Nemo

[John Riley]

David, thanks for reading and I'm glad you like it. Also, thanks for the typo catch. It is "planning."

Cameron, I'm glad you read this one. You know what I value most about the shape and sound of a poem. The last line has been tough but that was inevitable. I like what I have now though there is discussion of making "here" to be "there."

Thanks, Brandon for rereading it. As I said, that damn last line.

Carl, I'm pleased in a cocky way that I changed the last line before you got to it. You've been a great help by pointing it out each time. I'm pleased you like this one.

Nemo, thanks. I always love it when you comment on my poems and other people's poems. I was sacrificing the poem for the image and the image's possible consequences. I fell into writing this one without much thought, which is usual, but I realized what I wanted it to do sooner than usual. What you and Cam said has centered my thinking these last couple of days. I've written poems in so many different structures and styles. I guess that is good but I want to settle down. It's time.

[John Riley]

I decided to change “here” to “there.” “Here” was trying too hard.

[John Boddie]

John - This is a fascinating piece, and no small part of the fascination is generated by the last line. I greatly prefer the original and the way it pulls the reader to consider who the speaker might be and the nature of the impetus for the creation of the narrative.

Your willingness to make changes in that line seems to say (to me, anyway) that you are looking for something that is not quite settled in your creation. It will be interesting to see how this might change for you in a year or so.

It's a first-class effort as it is.

JB

[John Riley]

Thanks, John. I’m grateful. Yes, the last line is the challenge and I will keep considering.

[Jim Moonan]

.
It is a declarative exercise that arrives at a point where we are asked to join in speculating what happens next, or more accurately, after all that has happened. The N brings us only so far and then invites us to muse with him, and with her, perhaps. It is a fascinating way to end a poem: to leave the reader involved but empty-handed, asking the reader to imagine who this woman is and how she handles her beauty.

The slant-cut bangs are interesting.

It's a red, white and blue poem with the emphasis on red. The blue dress makes me think of "Devil With A Blue Dress On" by Shorty Long of Mitch Ryder and The Detroit Wheels. The red sky and red light streaming through the window heightens the sensuality in the poem. The washroom is a vivid blank white canvas. There is an Edward Hopper-like feel of isolation.

From an elocution standpoint, how does the voice go at the end of each line 17-25 — Does it rise or stay flat?

Again, another punctuation-free poem, which you do so well. In your hands it creates tension; a compressed feel unabated by commas/periods/marks of any kind.

As for my hunch, I like to imagine the answer is "all of the above." After all, I am we as you are me as she is me and we are all together : )

Another warm poem. (ironing is a lost art.)

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