The Day Before It Ended (Revision 2-3-13)

[tectak]

Revision 2

We drank a tasteless Shiraz
in that trendy café on Union,
chewing words like stale breadstruggling to find nits, here, todd. Small point and a common one. Confilct of terms in your metaphor BUT the intent is clear. Chewing
is a verb, bread is a noun. So chewing is like bread? "The words we chewed were like stale bread" or "we chewed words as we would stale bread",;.As I said, pedantic but it is very good enough as it is.

in a litany of root canals and laundry,is this a continuation of the sentence in last stanza? I will keep on asking, why the gap? What is it for? Should I have a coffee in between? How do you see this pause?
groceries and endless
soccer games.......but again, it is saved by its hallmark. It is gold

You spoke of that place
you’d read about,
something about mangos,
some island somewhere,
which you might like to visit. not the best stanza. Whistfully constructed and possibly apposite for all that. I am left a little unsure of the craft in this. My problem

I nodded,
as always,
felt your lips
light brush.

Our kiss now faded:
a postmark on a letter i can sigh into this line. Very pensive
from people
we no longer knew. you are in a tense tense region,here. I want it to be "...from people we no longer know" but you do not. Trouble is, I don't know what you do want it to be

In the indistinct gray light,
no particular bird was singing. so little here but meaning so much. Clever

Your stuff really benefits from workshopping. The edit is excellent and I am just being picky. Very well done.
Best,
tectak

Revision

We drank a tasteless Shiraz
in that trendy café on Union,
chewing words like stale bread.

The sum of our equation
had become
the root canal, the laundry, the groceries,
and endless soccer games.

You spoke of that place
you’d read about,
something about mangos,
some island somewhere,
which you might like to visit.

I nodded,
as always,
felt your lips
light brush.

Our kiss now faded:
a postmark on a letter
from people
we no longer knew.

In the indistinct gray light,
no particular bird was singing.



Original

We drank a tasteless Shiraz
in that trendy café on Union,
while our mouths chewed
the words between us
like stale bread.

The sum of our equation
had become the root
canal, the laundry, the grocery list,
and endless soccer games.

You spoke of that place
you’d read about,
some island somewhere,
something about mangos—
which you might like to visit.

I nodded,
as always,
felt your lips
light brush.

Our kiss had become faded:
a postmark on a letter
from people
we no longer knew.

In the indistinct gray light,
no particular bird was singing.