Big Points for Trying

I was good to animals and small children.

Made room for the guy on the streetcar

who talked to himself.

Even gave him a few bucks.

But truth be told:

I never invited him home to tea.

Didn’t always take the easiest way,

but certainly enough times.

And, yes, vanity got in the way,

more than once —

the fight back from an ugly girlhood.

I frittered away talent,

pearls to swine, some might say,

churning out Annual Reports for rent money,

giving my all on corporate press tours,

with no energy left for the poem.

But a girl’s got to make a living,

long seemed a worthy excuse.

The world gives you too many reasons

to feel you’re not quite

good enough, talented enough.

accomplished enough.

And there was I —

Listening intently

to each

and every one.