One Poem Girl

Keith Irwin

She was a one poem girl. She had just enough mystery, just the right hint of depth in her eyes, just the right sweetness in her voice. She exuded a certain muted passion which almost intoxicated. And she was more than pretty enough to lure in the poet or the songster. She was not a tease, but she would be friendly enough and curious enough to let the dreamer dream of her. And perhaps the dreams would last long enough to crystallize into that poem of hopeful, not yet requited, pure, fantastical love. Or maybe they wouldn’t last so long as all of that, and the one poem would not come until later. But not both. Not then and later. For she was a one poem girl. And sometimes she would break the poet’s heart bluntly acknowledging a disinterest in romancing the poet. And the words of love never to be requited, passionate, magical, frustrated, disappointed would come falling out onto the page, forming themselves into a poem which he would perhaps later be ashamed of because it is too heartbroken, too depressing, too whiny, or too true. And that would her one poem be. Or maybe instead that other moment would have happened first.

There was, in desiring her deeply, inevitably a moment, a point where, as suddenly as her spell came, it left. And sometimes that moment would come before the expression of disinterest, saving the poet from that particular type of heartbreak. And sometimes it would come after. But most often, I think, it came during. It was that point where the words and inflections and mannerisms made it clear that she did not care for the poet since she really cared only for herself, that the look of depth in her eyes and the sound of sweetness in her voice were imitated traits, that the mystery about her was just the poet’s inability to related to her unpoetic motivations, and that her beauty was not a gift from the universe to a deserving soul or an outward reflection of a magical inner light, but rather, just the way she looked. And maybe it was that moment, that epiphany which caused the poet to write her her one poem, a poem of foolish love and illusions rightly shattered, of priceless understanding, and maybe of hope for true love beyond the infatuatory longings for one poem girls.

Or maybe it came much later, after having seen others write her their singular poem of her, sing their one song to her. Because I was a young, infatuated poet once. And I fell for a one poem girl. And this is her one poem. But I do think that with age and a little effort and a touch of pain one poem girls, mine included, can grow to be women of infinite songs. And if this is now her goal, I do very sincerely wish her the best success that she can find and the easiest path to getting there.