(Painting: "Old Man Selling Eggs" by Olan Smith, acrylic on linen, 76.2 X 96.52 cm)

Who Sees Annabel Lee?

2018, Olan L. Smith

Annabel you are a cold-cat-baby poem,

A detached ender of love,

A pardon in morning's light,

Once upon a beach somewhere

In between here and there in Neverland

Where waves crash and shout―

"Nevermore," who sees her sees him as a bouquet―

Understand all is a sea unexplored.

If you realize her in the roar?

If you understand her in Nevermore, please whisper,

'He―breathes―amore and quotes Poe's Annabel Lee,'

Whose tomb, whose mother weeps for him?