Choice Regretted

and when the walls of Jericho collapse,
no doubt offended by modern jazz,
will she turn the amplifier down,
or take a good run at Jerusalem?

she always meant to be someone else,
someone quicker to empathize,
someone less affected by empathy,
collecting seashells is less fun
when she's knee deep in discarded shell.

she could have been a capable engineer,
good with graph paper,
quick witted in calculus,
a natural grasp for thermodynamics,

but she wished to map out souls,
one story at a time,
over coffee, late at night,
a tear sometimes dripped
on a personal computer....
an endless array of submissions
and rejections and brilliance
and feelings.

now she sells, when she sells,
rent gets paid,
birkenstocks bought,
but sometimes she wonders

how she became a writer
with the soul of a technician--
she can see inside people,
but sometimes she wishes mainly to look away.

so now she writes and dreams
and cries a lot,
still a strong person,
but isn't strength deceptive?