[Alexandra Baez]

Susan, I’m glad you “did pick up the symbolism of the accumulation of details and slowing of the narrative about the eddying pocket.” That’s probably as good as I could hope for from any reader with a distaste for extended description (which seems to be most if not all in the current crowd). And thanks for elucidating your objection to the anapest in the title—that makes sense. I don’t have an objection per se to making the title strictly iambic, so if I can find a way to do so without being redundant, I will.

I noticed that "off/eye" don't rhyme, and it occurred to me that if you moved "you" to the rhyme position in place of "off," you would have a "you/eye" that would evoke the "you" and "I" of the poem.

I see. That's an interesting observation about the parallel to "you" and "I," which I hadn't noticed. So were you perceiving “you” and “eye” as an off rhyme? My off rhyme in S1 is supposed to be “away” and “eye." As I’d explained to Andrew, my rhyme scheme for the original version's first three stanzas, of which the first two stand in the revision, was

AB(A off-rhyme)A--(S1)
ABC(A off-rhyme)A--(S2, except last line; C's added here for a sense of diversion and entrapment)
AB(A off-rhyme)A--(last line of S2 and all of S3)

I do think I prefer your second to last line to the ones I've tried, so thank you for that!

Jim, I appreciate your careful introspection about your reactions to my and Susan’s versions, respectively. Your explanation nails, I think, why and how you liked each and in so doing, it satisfies my curiosity about the seeming contradiction between those two responses. Thank you, and for the accompanying additional heaps of bolstering praise!

Carl, hi and good to see you again and I’m looking forward to commenting on your new poem, which I’ve long hoped for!

Just for fun, though, I’ll tell you how my bad habits get me into trouble.

Oh my gosh! I admit that your initial reading is too winceworthy to be much fun for me, since before I revised my title to the current one, other readers’ minds had likely gone in similar directions.

particularly the missing subject and verb promised by “as,”

Oh! You know, I guess I hadn’t consciously noticed that. Maybe the meter had subconsciously steered me into omitting an "if" after "as." But the resulting confusion is unnecessary and easily fixed. Done, and thanks!

shouldn’t there be a comma after “awhirl”?

Oh! Yes! Thank you!

The cry “Forever yours!” is awfully loud. Would you consider losing the exclamation point and going with a quieter verb: “said” or “pledged” or (with “in”) “whispered” or “murmured”?

Hmm, I’ll consider it, but the current phrasing did seem an accurate representation of the reality upon which this poem was based. The emphatic nature of the declarations in question was what made them more impressively ironic than bittersweet, later on.

Your rhyme scheme is too subtle for my ear

It was somewhat more developed before I omitted the former S3, but in either version, off rhymes are a key part of the equation. I like to think that you absorbed them, if only subconsciously, along with the obvious, full rhymes.

A little Frost in L4?

You mean in its last sentence? I don’t know. I pick up influences all over! Thank you for entering the “right frame of mind to get into” the poem, however consciously or subconsciously that came about. And I’m glad you were able to enjoy the poem.