Miracle Grow

Here's a poetry exercise. Write the letters of your first name in a column, leaving a space between each. Starting at the bottom, write the letters of your last name, going up, between the spaces. Now write a poem with that many lines, each line beginning with that letter.

With my name, it looks like this

L
R
E
E
S
L
L
L
I
I
E
M


And here's the poem.

- - - - -

Miracle Grow

Lately she is unhappy with her prize
Roses and their sturdy blooms.
Elsewhere in the garden
Empty spaces
Show that she has
Lavished attention there and nowhere else
Luxuriated in those roses,
Left the rest of the plot
ill-planted and
indigent as a stepchild,
Empty as a barren woman who waits for
Miracles.