The Syntax of Rumination

I was the last thing –
the thing at the bottom
in the end
at the end
when she wanted everything

I was the last thing she wanted.

She couldn’t care less. Even when she cared less,
she cared the least.
and I was the last,
the last, the least thing
she wanted.

The last thing she wanted was me.

Prompt: Consider the syntax in a poem, how it turns on a single word. Meaning shifts slightly and creates layers like the rings in a trees, related and repetitive.  Consider the first line the last and the last line the first. Write the poem to be read backwards and forwards.


Corinne Walsh earned a Pushcart Prize nomination for short fiction in 2006. Pausing to raise her family, the poetry muse subsists. Her poems have appeared in Abandoned Mine, Acropolis Journal, and Tiny Frights. She is currently working on a full length book of poems.