Like a lie

[Lonpoet]

She was pregnant and in pain
Stabbed by her ex
Lived, I think, on the local heathway
on sex
Allowance book, Bible, toothbrush: all covered in toothpaste
condoms coated in toothpaste flowed from her black handbag

She asked at the tissues for recipience
And she swore and she swore and she swore
But I can't now recall a word she said anymore
just that her mother had told her it was futile to flip
At people who stared at her
as I stared at her
Scribbling something in a notebook
(in case it rhymed)!

Days later I telephoned
Asking for a Ms Cheryl Cooper
They had let me go after some tests
and kept her
But none of the departments had an inkling
of who I was on about

 

[thenry]

In general this works for me as a narrative. It has a rolling sort of rhythm, however, that I think is marred in a few places. Marred an otherwise interesting commentary and an intriguing situation.

There are simpler lines, lines with repetition ("allowances book, Bible, toothbrush: …", "But I can't now recall…" ), and the lines that follow do not fit, I think, or their rhymes seemed forced.

Also the following three lines: as I stared at her / Scribbling something in a notebook / (in case it rhymed)!

For me this poem was trying to be about a girl's life and not about the narrator's relationship to it or the need to write a poem about it. The narrator was starting to intrude upon the imagery.

But the removal of those three lines leaves the narrator as an acceptibly oblique presence in the last stanza whose involvement makes the observations more personal.