You must be strong through solitude, said Fate,
for the present this thought alone must be your shelter—
this in your yearbook by your photograph.
Your bearing is a woman’s not full woman,
bent to a straw of grass just plucked and held
like an eyetest card—you mature in blacking out.
A girl can’t go on laughing all the time.
The other campgirls sway to your brooding posture,
they too must scowl to see a blade of grass;
yet you are out of focus and blurred like me,
separation stoops and fogs the lens—
one more humiliation to blow away,
only husked out in monosyllable—
profundities too shallow to expose.