she'll never be a Pretty Woman

[Ramona]

Carcasses of cardboard boxes
A corrugated graveyard
An invalid wearing lipstick
Her fingers from a ‘V’
Over the cigarette

She takes a drag

Cars growling across the overpass
Spewing gravel and loud music
Aluminum cans
Lost shoes
Lost souls
Me

I look at her and think
Who do you love?

She wears a pleather jacket
Conducts business with faces hidden by tinted windows
Cars gravitate towards her
Holding men
Holding boys

Who do you love?

Her boy thinks mommy works at the hospital
Dressed in a smock and pristine shoes
Taking care of the sick and elderly
But she works on a dirty sidewalk
Dressed in high heels and lust
And she does more than take care of the covetous

Who do you love?

Dirt
Desire
Her
Me

Muddy thoughts and liquor
‘cause we wouldn’t be here sober
we wouldn’t be here
exchanging burning glances
and thinking the same burning thoughts

I look at her and think
Who do you love?
Is it me?

[Queen of Rain]

Wow this is so brilliant! so amazing, great diction and imagery. I love the changing format..
the weaker parts would be the son thing.. to me it sounds a bit thrown in there. i think something of "her old friends" or something - seeing the change in life.. other than that the contrast in the stanza is good.

[Robin]

I agree. The stanza about her son is a little weak, although I can see what you were trying to do. It's sort of like the Dress Lodger, except her son wasn't old enough to know anything, and he died.

"A girl with cherry red lipstick
Her fingers from a ‘V’
Around the cigarette"

I don't quite like this, either. The cherry red lipstick image is just kind of cliche, I think, and describing her as a girl just doesn't fit here. I mean, it's neccesary to the image here, but it just doesn't sound quite right, and the line break between 'v' and 'around is awkward.

[Ramona]

Thanks to both of you. I'll work on those bits.

[cry,crayola.]

as mentioned before, i think, the part about the son kinda threw me off but i liked it in there. i think this was an amazing piece. excellent job! the ending was brilliant!

[ScarletMornings]

personally, i adored this and didn't really see anything wrong that's been pointed out, but maybe you have edited since those comments? i think this is fantastic, the last two/three stanzas are my favorites, esp.
Muddy thoughts and liquor
‘cause we wouldn’t be here sober
we wouldn’t be here
exchanging burning glances
and thinking the same burning thoughts

fantastic job, in my opinion.

[Ramona]

Yeah, I've edited it since then. And thank you so much for your comments!

[onemoremile]

That's amazing. Just... wow. I agree with the others, i love the ending. The only part which threw me off slightly was
'Taking care of the sick and elderly
But she works on a dirty sidewalk' i'm not sure why but the change between the lines felt a bit abrupt to me... i think it was the 'but', the b just sounded a bit harsh and it disrupted the flow. On the other hand, i suppose it helps split the stanza in two to show the boys though and reality... so basically this whole comment is kinda useless. This is what happens if i start to type without thinking what i'm going to type