One of the nicest things that's ever happened to me is having two of Gail White's poems printed in my section of "Landscapes with Women." I've had a million compliments on them--"Gravity, Grace" & "one Woman & 25 Cats"--and admit, as honesty requires, but only with regret--that they're not mine. How I wish some of the poems in "The Price of Everything" could somehow be made to migrate to my next book: "First Death," for instance, or this wicked little beauty:
CINDERELLA'S SISTERS
Who would have guessed we'd end up in the convent?
Regan and Goneril reformed at last!
But we, like most who found this place convenient,
can't face the future or escape the past.
Oh, she was generous and so forgiving!
We could have made good matches--so she said--
with aging dukes who would have gone on living
just long enough for us to wish them dead.
We really tried. We visited the palace
and praised the rooms, the service, and the food.
Call it humility or call it malice,
we couldn't stick. Whatever attitude
we tried, we couldn't seem to get it right,
and so we got religion, out of spite.
Actually, I'll take any she's willing to let me have.
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