Congratulations Julie, Janice, and Marcus -- a real pleasure to read these poems, which are so different from each other. I've a feeling I'm going to get some use from the phrase, "puppet-socky souls."

Best,

Ed

Thanks for the warm wishes.

I wrote the poem because I was so shocked by my vulture-like eagerness at this tragedy. I knew that each death meant that lots of other people would be experiencing the same horrible loss that I'd been dreading since my daughter's heart started to fail. And I knew that my hopes were stupid, anyway, because there was almost no chance that any viable organs could be made available from such a forensic situation, let alone that they would be the right blood type and size to save my kid. But I couldn't stop feeling excited about it. Yuck. The strictness of the ballade form helped me to feel more in control of my disturbingly out-of-control emotions.

I submitted this poem to The Rotary Dial because I had been so impressed by Catherine Chandler's poignant "Off-the-wall" sonnet in the May 2014 issue (Issue 15, p. 11), which shows a mother's perspective from the potential-donor side of the transplant experience. The emotions are almost identical, I think, in her narrator's rejection of the saintly selflessness we've always been taught is more appropriate: "I exercise my right to fall apart, / ask God's forgiveness for this venial sin..." Yup. Been there, done that. We all get a little tunnel-visioned where our loved ones' lives are concerned.

Thanks for your efforts to invite Marcus back, Roger. I hope he's tempted. Then again, if he comes back and turns out to be as annoying a jerk as the rest of us can be at times, everyone's going to blame you and me....

He works and plays well with others on Facebook, but I suppose we here at the Sphere can bring out the worst in him if we try hard enough.

Julie, your poem is stunning. Congratulations to you, Janice and Marcus.

Kudos, Julie, Janice, and Marcus!

Congratulations to all!