She was the hollow girl,
A living, dead girl.
Noggin grogged, without a cause.
A braided actress, off to Oz.
No bed there to lie on.
A circle formed with one side out.
Null and void, without a doubt.
The moth attracted to a flame,
Does such attraction have a name?
No shoulder there to cry on.
As Mona Lisa smiles in vain,
From nauseating stomach pain.
The answer hidden in her middle,
Her silent smirk sends forth the riddle.
Her whole was just a sum of holes,
A tire gone flat but onward rolls.
A seed which falls on rocky ground.
A one-hand clap which makes no sound.
There was a little thing inside,
That saved me from the sewer side,
A thing I never understood,
Which turned the evil into good.
Unto the dog, a scrap was thrown,
Completely meatless, just a bone.
While I seek out another play,
Where every dog will have its day.
end
Mr. E. Bates is a poet who likens the quest for love to a foxhunt,
in which it is the chase and not the kill that appeals.
The Hollow Girl