A Girl Through The Glass (edit #2.2)

[Leanne]

Edit #2.2

She's set apart, she's floating upside down.
All else seems right within this verdant town,
the goats to milk and fields of hay to scythe,
deep satisfaction in a farming life —  beginning this line on deep creates a bump in the meter, and you also have a stress on in ("in a" is a very weak iamb).  Then you go on to rhyme life and life between stanzas and it's just not powerful.  I think this line is the one to change.  
a happy world, why does she tumble 'round?

Her feet branch out above her like a crown -- I like this line a great deal.  This concept of displacement and wrongness is strong.
but still a smile when turned becomes a frown,
why would she fret with such a peaceful life?
She's set apart

beneath her house whose roof points at the ground,
below the billow of her azure gown
her face is blank. Her empty arms are lithe
but though her husband's near he sees no wife.
Her head hangs low, in floods the first to drown.
Her part is set.



She sets her part and turns the world her way,
above each high-rise peak and alleyway
the city is her own; she plants her feet,
stance rooted deep to guard against defeat
and draws the bold to join in her soiree.

With street-smarts edging her naiveté
her pages age like slow-sipped cabernet:
tart on the tongue, bouquet complex yet sweet.
She writes her part:

to cherish but move on from yesterday, -- move on seems quite mundane among the more sophisticated language
maintain her joie de vivre, a bit risqué
but cognizant of when to be discreet.
Her husband revels in her grin, replete
upon the bed she's made; they meet halfway
within her heart.


(An attempt. Both Intensive and Mild critique are invited, critic's choice. )

From a form point of view, the retrements are a bother to me.  Most of the reason I really love rondeaux is because of the discipline it requires to keep that refrain working in different ways -- I can accept the reversal "she sets her part/ her part is set" just, although I am not keen and don't see the need for the change, and to a lesser extent I'd overlook "she writes her part" but the final refrain, just no.  Sorry.  A rentrement works like bookends or brackets to contain the poem within, not to set it off in another direction.  

But I like the poem.  I really enjoy the surrealism which juxtaposes against the prosaic nature of the opening scenes, and then displaces the entire poem (subject and all) into a fantasy land which is somehow more solid than the pastoral reality.  The hints of hedonism and danger are contained nicely.  

So it remains just the form I take a bit of issue with.  Simple fixes. 

Disclaimer: I haven't read any of the previous critiques (TLDR) but I probably wouldn't anyway because I just don't care what other people have to say