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7/5/2014 9:53:09 AM

cheryl higgins
Posts: 12

Hi - new to the forum. I have difficulty deciding on line endings, if a poem doesn't have a particular form, such as the one below. I want to present the poem so it can be read and heard by the reader as I would read it aloud, but where to end the lines? How to think about that? I try not to use commas at the end of the line, or in general, so commas may be useful, but I want the poem to look on the page the way it sounds in my head and I end up with many versions of the same poem all different line endings.

Any comments at all about the poem are entirely welcome. Line endings and discussion about that would be particularly helpful. Thanks.

A Good Bed of Ashes
by Cheryl L. Higgins

I met the year’s first frost
running fence lines at dusk

your coat was frozen in folds
where it lay since spring I picked it

from the damp stump, picked
kindling and sticks and

big cracked logs from the woodpile
picked splinters from my sweater

at the hearth and sheets from
piles of old summer news.

Picked a cheat. Picked
a new can of lighter fluid and

a lavender-scented match.
Laid a new fire in the remnants of last year’s

Began a new winter
on a good bed of ashes.

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edited by clhiggins on 7/5/2014
edited by clhiggins on 7/5/2014
edited by clhiggins on 7/5/2014
edited by clhiggins on 7/5/2014

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