This poem was published in Ariel: A Review of International English Literature, Vol. 15/ No. 4, October 1984.

When I finished this poem, I thought my former poetry instructor, Christopher Wiseman, would like to see what I could do with the sestina form when I had a decent theme. He was the poetry editor of Ariel, so I sent it there first. I don't think sentiment played any part in its acceptance, though an appreciation of formal verse probably did. Formal verse is not everyone's cup of tea, and some silly people even see it as an annoying cultural regression. I thought he would appreciate the poem for what it was, and I was not mistaken.