she smiles - edit4

[milo]

edit4;


she smiles
and feeling so relieved for her
in that brightened moment
I start to cry except
it’s gone before my tears can well

then returning terror locks
her features tight
as she finds she cannot
understand or put a name
to anything she sees

smile lights again
dove-like
I want to turn away
before the next fright
in this cursed alternation

but I can’t
this is not damnation
since it’s neither endless
nor deserved

---

Thanks to both recent critics - encouragement appreciated.

@milo - Yes, it's starting to smell a bit of the lamp.   I've reduced the sentence fragments, made other changes and reversed the order in the last stanza - seems to flow better and, really, either word is the start of a new idea.  Is unfairness a better place to leave it than with the promise of surcease?

Gently defending passives:  this is just happening to both the subject and the narrator; neither of them can do anything about the situation.  Hard to make it active when the most either does is smile, grimace, or start to move without completing the gesture.

just a quick note: that is an interesting take on passive voice, I am going to think on it a bit.  Would passive voice be better for this considering the central metaphor is  a sense of helplessness?  I am not sure.  My inherent dislike of passive voice in poetry may have caused a knee jerk reaction.  I am going to think on this for a bit.

Thanks