[annie nance]

Hi John - and Mark.

Mark, thank you for pointing out what immediately became obvious to me AFTER I read your comment.

And John, I think your poem was just as good when I didn't get it as it. I will concur with omst of the positive things interated here, and come to NIck's defencse a little because it's fun to play around with the form and shape of a poem.

As a longtime churchgoer, I'm familiar with that basement full of crap, and never really thought about it in such a way before. Two little nitpicks with word choice, and please take with a grain of salt because maybe you have your reasons...

"the force of the lie dropping their eyes..." A force is a push or a pull, so I want it to say pulling their eyes or pushing their eyes down to the floor.

"gathered under a too-blue sky... a sky with no stars to triangulate"
You wouldn't expect stars in a blue, daylight, sky. So no fair complaining about no stars.

All in all, a solid poem. much to enjoy.

annie

editing in ... *Maybe I misread. Is the poem saying that the sky SHOULD have been dark, not blue at all?