DIG (literary submissions)

I want to submit some poetry to dig, an annual poetry (and other stuff) 'zine.

With that in mind, how can I make these better?


Regrets, Unlessoned

Walking down the street in early April,
In shoes (at last), not boots, my
mittens stuffed
unceremoniously into my shoulder bag
(Freedom!)
My hands feel the freshening breeze for the first time, since
Winter came

A stranger stops me

A stranger stops me,
r-e-a-c-h-e-s
across the boundary of space to
touch
my skin, to
take
my hand, and say:
"See?
You have got to take better care of your fingernails. No
man's gonna want to talk to you, looking
like that."

Just
like that.

For only a moment (the purest
shock)
you could hear a pin drop,
a shoe drop,
a drop that, falling, makes ripples (in the still, cool waters of someone else's lake)

There's a little boy clinging, in a way that says
Daddy.
Big eyes that take everything in.

"How Dare you??" I did not say
"What (the hell) gave you the impression that
I
am doing this for
(the likes of) you?
I am (the subject of my own world)
NOT (an ornament to yours)!"

I did not say it.

Big eyes that take everything in.

I wish I had.


*~*~*~*~*


Old Shoes

Lover,
You are the comfy shoe
I put on when the day is long and
My feet and
My heart are
hurting.
Comfortable and familiar, but
I don't want
to wear you out.


*~*~*~*~*


Streaming

The clock ticks

if we met now,
would we have met at all?

The house is silent

cars on the road go by outside the window
you're upstairs and I can hear you
moving

The house is silent

is this the beginning of the end?

The clock ticks
And the present
Becomes the past


*~*~*~*~*


Not sure if any of them fit the bill of "challenging, compelling and impactful", or, for that matter, that they aren't "romantic or boring", but we'll see.

Suggestions? Pretty-please? :-)