Julie, thanks for your speculations and attention to my poem. Rhina has it right: I took the Wednesday, Thursday progression from that Millay poem--but I also thought the nursery rhyme fit in an interesting and surprising way (I also chuckled that your inspiration came in the shower which is precisely where the inspiration for the actual line came to me--I wonder how many of our more interesting lines come to poets in the shower?)
I was preparing to teach a course on Frost and Millay--two contemporaneous New England poets who, as far as I can tell, never met--and I came across the description of how her mother helped Vincent miscarry. My reaction was visceral, having nothing to do with the politics of the abortion debate. I was just saddened by it. The realization that Cora, Vincent's mother, never did become a grandmother, deepened my sadness. What did we all lose? And I started to speculate on why beauty in body and in art comes at such a cost. Most of the men in Vincent's life, and maybe even Vincent herself, thought she was a "goddess" of sorts. She was blessed in many ways. But such a pedestal is always under atack by time and nature. Mortality for a poet and, especailly, a goddess is tough to take. Perhaps, it makes you jealous of a child, not just the hard work invloved in child rearing but the constant reminder of your own aging in comparison. Self-absorbtion and single mindedness, even in devotion to an art, take their toll; art can only excuse so much.
I hope the above doesn't ruin the poem for anybody. I wrote the poem as a warning to myself more than anything else.
-Robert Crawford
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