One word

[GuiltyPleasure]

The power one word has is incredible. I wrote this poem months ago -

Useless

There are four beds here
the fourth is pristine
waiting for weight

All of us helpless
watching the days’ march
the nights pass
slowly resigned to swallowing
what is served
accepting all indignities

Across the antiseptic divide
lies a stranger
I have grown to love

Her hair is long and gray,
her body wasted and rebellious
she is unconsciously abandoned
restlessly active
in the snowy field she swims
in her coma

Today she has soiled herself
and we cannot look
as she rolls in her own filth
the staff flits frantically past
the open door too busy to care
unaware of this uncomplaining soul

A tall distinguished man appears
other-worldly in his business suit
graying temples
assumptions are made
now a nurse will come
but he is no doctor

A son who stands
for a moment
at his mother’s bedside
taking in what she has become
then slowly draws the curtain
around his public shame.

...and debated long and hard about the last word. Then something happened, a comment condemed the son and I saw the poem through new eyes. It was not my intemtion for the reader to blame the son for his mothers plight so I think the last line should read " around his public grief." which changes the whole slant of the poem and more accurately portrays what I wanted. Do you have a poem or poems that pivot on one word?

 

[Senna Jawa]

[...]
around his public shame.​

...and debated long and hard about the last word. [...] I think the last line should read " around his public grief."[...]

No. You should remove this last line (and your poem will gain so much immediately).

Warm regards,

 

[champagne1982]

No. You should remove this last line (and your poem will gain so much immediately).

Warm regards,

That's brilliant, Senna.

 

[LeBroz]

No. You should remove this last line (and your poem will gain so much immediately).

Warm regards,

That's brilliant, Senna.

Agree to the above for the following — the writer has put her evaluation, her judgement of the situation and appears to absolve the reader of becoming engaged in what has happened. Without that the reader is pressed to think more about what he's seen and to come to his own evaluation.

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[GuiltyPleasure]

I am speechless at how simple the solution to my dilemma is. Thank you, Senna, very much.

I read somewhere - it is what is not said the makes the meaning clear.

 

[twelveoone]

The power one word has is incredible. ...
which changes the whole slant of the poem and more accurately portrays what I wanted. Do you have a poem or poems that pivot on one word?

pivot is an interesting word, I've wrote around words that have opposite meanings, I've seen poems that been made poetry with a word, and I remember Tara Blackwood use of the word polar almost dead centre signaled both seasonal change and emotional charge.
I probably learned as much from her, as I did from Eliot about word signaling.