Submerged

Block 17 in the North Pearl District, where an $80 million high-rise is ascending ... after it has submerged its anchors deep in the ground. The tan buildings with the water tower are the Centennial Mills, dating to 1909, whose inventive reuse was supposed to be a key feature of the development of this area—a hope that has yet to materialize. The curved glass-front building on the right is one of the newer buildings on the north edge of the Pearl District.

Nearby residents (that includes me) have been warned that pile-driving will take place from 7am to 5pm six days a week for the next two weeks, and seven days a week for the third week. Some of the big construction machines are already submerged within the dig. I hope they don't fall into that huge hole in the middle of the site. The fence preventing me from getting close enough to see just how deep it is.

Today's poem is related to the Shakespearean word for the day but has no other connection to the photo.


Chantler63 Shakespeare Challenge and National Poetry Writing Month
Words invented by Shakespeare - Day 14: submerge


I observed a more-than-middleaged couple at a cafe.
I've seen them a time or two before.
They seem to be in the early stages of courtship.
He has a thick head of white hair and a mustache.
She has dyed brown shoulder-length hair and wears lots of rings and bracelets.
He talks and talks, in a quiet voice in the noisy cafe, so she has to pay close attention.
She laughs girlishly, detectably nervous, and nods encouragement.
He talks some more.
She leans flirtatiously toward him and jingles her bracelets.
He goes on talking.
It isn't a conversation, it's an actor and an audience.

There was a time when this is how women were expected to submerge themselves in a relationship, but I would have thought that women of all ages had gotten the message by now that they had more to offer than slavish devotion and more to expect than a monologue.

The poem is a dramatic monologue in the woman's voice, revealing what I wish she had said.


BLIND DATE

To surge toward you
How must I diverge?
To merge with you
What must I submerge?
Your pride's in view—
Must I then subside?
Love for your own voice—
That, you cannot hide.
Forgive my abstention
And confess your intention.
Were you the distaff side
And I the man,
Would you not deride
Such a mean plan?
To be fully myself is my intention.
From that, no lover can demand abstention.
Bye-bye, cheri, to you-you-you
With whom I can't to my own self be true.


Thanks to Polonius for the final line.
Thanks to the Bard for the couplet that marks the end of the scene.