the first 4 stanzas reeled me in, vivid world. you lost me when you started with her thinking about the lingere--what does that have to do with the lost key? okay, i say, maybe he'll pull it together later, and i read on. and then you offer me the last chance--the scallops on the stove and the half-naked woman--and still, no key. okay, i get it it, but the integrration needs work.

her sudden realization that 'it isn't here'--why is that an 'of course' reaction?

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=oddlyEnoughNews&;storyID=6452056&src=rss/oddlyEnoughNews&section=news

oy. ready? set? crit:

She washed over me like water,

>>k—washed over me doesn’t need to be qualified with ‘like water’—>>economize your words for greater effect.

and I knew love
like love had never known;

>>abstract

she wriggled into every crevice, licked
me clean, then left--

>>okay, now we’re getting somewhere. Was it a salty tongue, like
>>sharkskin, so smooth on the approach yet tearing and scraping
>>like sandpaper as it pulled away?


but she came back, caressed me down, deeper still.

>>and what did that feel like?

She went and came like some sick little game

>>yep. Yep. Very clear to me.

and I was stone, alone and uncertain;

>> I have a hard time with stones being uncertain. They don’t roll.
>>They know where they’ll wake up tomorrow. They know what they are
>>going to wear tonight. And they definitely know if they look fat
>>in that.


her visitations slowly eroded my hesitation
and I became used to her comings and goings.


>>tides? To repeat the water/comparison to elementals metaphor?


We settled into a long routine, then: love when she was there

>>delete “then”

and happy rememberings on her trips away.


>>both of you settled into this
>both of you with the happy rememberings?

Slowly, though, she found my deep imperfections
and seeping into them she'd leave a piece of herself behind
to whip cold and hot.

>>finding and seeping cold maybe be better verbs? More insidious?

She'd tell herself tales
when she returned
and slowly I cracked, I crumbled,


>>what sort of tales? About what? Why? And how did it come
>>about that you heard them?

and she'd whisk those pieces away, rounding them to pebbles, then sand
while I remained
less
and less.

>>again, delete “then”

The strength of her love never waned
and in time it became too much
for what was left of me,
one raw stone,
and I let go.


>>you never showed us that she loved you, only that she tortures you


I entered her to and fro,
another pawn of her whimsy
to slowly be rounded to nothing
through pleasure.

>>apart from ‘pawn’ being overused, the rounding to nothing slowly through pleasure is quite good.

too many times the world is this way.

but as a poem, it is telling more than showinhg. and i am a dick, maybe. but that is that. a weak, insignificant teary-eyed one, whose dreams are so different than the waking world.

and? come on now. you can do better than that.

welcome back, bub.

nice one

nice. now it all comes clear.

alles ist klar.