I cried when I first read her fate
as a child of 15 had no business-
an angel, firm through all those years
500 pages of David’s blindness
I held her as the standard, as a man
had intended for me, for all my kind-
to give and wait and love and give
as God himself designed
But I’m no Agnes Wickfield
I’ve got a tale that is all my own
I was born to be a heroine
and Charles Dickens died alone