my first true love

I have read somewhere, “I know a woman who would marry a poem,” though I cannot remember who said it, or who it was said about, and after having searched now in all the possible books in my collection, I shall have to quote the line here and appropriate the author as soon as I come across it again. Perhaps it was Browning about Browning, or Yeats about Maud, but now that I think about it, it may have been someone about Edna St. Vincent Millay. I’m not sure.

I am sure that it could have been written about me, by anyone who might know me well enough, or even by someone who has known me briefly but has heard me speak of my favorite poem. Anyone would surely have noticed the devoted reverence and singular, empathetic adoration in my voice.

I would marry a poem if I could and I know which one I would take to be my lawful, wedded husband.

I found Tennyson’s “Flower in the crannied wall” when I was fifteen, just before I was admitted to the juvenile loony bin for being, admittedly, a juvenile lunatic. I came across it as I was studying for the literature part of the GED examination. I was actually searching for the answer to a question about "Daddy" and in doing so I had just discovered Sylvia Plath, and that she rose with her red hair and ate “men like air,” which I thought was very interesting.

But when I found “Flower in the crannied wall” I thought that someone else before had felt exactly the same way that I do; that I was not alone; that maybe it was ok to have so many questions and so few answers; that I had found a tiny sliver of miraculous beauty in a dark, dark world; that I had found myself, my soul, and my true love.

Tennyson’s little flower saved my life. I even graduated from high-school.

We have been together ever since and I think we shall be ’til death do us part.