Unrequited love. Love that is not reciprocated or returned in kind.  A staple for writers from Shakespeare to TV sitcoms.

Mary Burbage (a character imagined by Michelle Cameron in her novel in verse, In the Shadow of the Globe ) falls in love with William Shakespeare. Her affections are not returned and the two paired poems we examined show Mary's admission of love ("Of My Unrequited Love for Will Shakespeare"), and Shakespeare's ("Quite Contrary") awareness of it.

But certainly our options for the unrequited are not limited to love. A web search immediately turns up the unrequited past, unrequited narcissism, unrequited friendship, admiration, charity...

Write your poem on the theme of something unrequited. It might be interesting to use two voices (though in one poem) letting the reader hear both sides, or you might select the less often heard voice of the one who chooses not to reciprocate.

HOPE UNREQUITED

Part 1: The Submission/Dream Deferred

It's been four long months--one third of a year--since
I sent out three sets of poems. Four months of silence.

Each day I walk down to the mailbox in this ritual of waiting
Have I become another Penelope? Will this take ten years?

As I approach the plain black box, I mutter a makeshift prayer
To the gods of poetry--perhaps this will be the day I hear from you.

Then quickly, before I open the small door, I try reverse psychology
On the mailbox: maybe there will be three rejection slips, not just one or
two.

From the open box, I pull out the pile of mail, sorting through
It right there on the spot--occupant flyers, bills, unsolicited requests for
money
Car & Driver, The New Yorker, an offer for another credit card, garden
catalogs, but nothing from you.

Why is it my heart was racing a moment ago as I imagined the No. 10 envelope
with my name written in my own hand, bearing the small slip that would say
(in no uncertain words) that my poems were not what you wanted?
I imagined it as only a slip--no handwritten note, no signature, nothing
more.

Still, by your silence, you've given me one more day of hope.

Part 2: The Rejection Slip/Dream Denied

The table is stacked with four piles
Of paper, unending submissions
Of poems, each with its carefully worded
Cover letter that sums up a life
In one brief paragraph.
Could there really be that many poets
All wanting to be published?
We have so little space, only ten or twelve
Poems can be accepted, yet still they come,
Like polite but uninvited guests, each holding
Out the hope that they will be the one who
Is asked to stay a while, maybe have a coffee
As we sit around the editorial table (just an old
Wooden table someone picked up at a yard sale
For forty dollars) talking & discussing poetry.

We've read them all, so now we bring out
Our favorites. This is the time of reckoning,
Bargaining among the editors.
Yours is in my stack. I liked the one
About Persephone. It left me thinking
Differently about pomegranates.

The coffee is cold by the time we finish.
We've read so many poems that one blends
Into another. We are up to ten now, and
There are so many left we cannot use. I
Make a case for your poem, but it turns out
That a former student of someone's mentor
Has submitted five. We will take two
And that makes our dozen. I know
Yours could make that magical baker's dozen,
But our pages are full, and so I scribble a line,

"Sorry, we can't use these poems
Right now, but we wish you luck
In getting them published."

I initial it before I slide the 2" x 5" rejection
Slip into the stamped, self-addressed envelope
You so carefully provided.

Several days from now, you will find the thin
Envelope, maybe even hold it up to the sun
And see the slip hiding there--hope unrequited
Again.

Mary Kendall

ANOTHER LOVER'S COMPLAINT

The door slams and you step out.
The window tree's petals fall like snow.
Your unrhymed words left no doubt
but left with you in the street below.
Behind the curtain's green glow,
I open up and let the flood of light.
Pray that with it comes sight.

Pamela Milne

BABY SISTER

Born when I was ten,
she became my charge.
After school till bedtime
I did everything mothers do:
Bathe and diaper, bottle and spoon feed,
sing songs, rock her to sleep.

I showed her how to hold a spoon,
build with blocks, pet a kitten.
I taught her colors, numbers,
nursery rhymes., read her books
made up stories to feed
her appetite for words.

Grown up, she barely talks to me,
Says he can’t remember
Any of that – that maybe
I imagined it. Her eyes say
I don’t owe you anything –
As if I ever asked.

Alice E. Johansen

UNREQUITED LOVE

I could understand unrequited love
If I drove around in the latest
Cadillac SUV with a small bump up front
That looks like an over grown
Mini Morris in black;
Even its high tech hub caps
Are cut out spokes as a toy.

Today, in this suburban mall
There is a convertible Dodge Fury,
With the top down, a full sized one
Out of the silent past of Eisenhower.

It has  ecru leather seats,
It is five million dollars of pop art
At a big screen drive in auction.
It has slowly been driven down
From Sunset Boulevard past Benedict Canyon
And enters Malibu.

One sees a sky as blue
As the water in Three Coins in the Foundation,
While passing Cedars and Pines
As on the Via Appia,
Hollywood can do such things.
It has a better than new show room finish
In a perfect red lacquer like mint proof coin.

The radio plays Doris Day,
For she in on the dash board singing
Que sera, what will be, will be.
Now Doris Day is in the front
Now, Doris is in the back seat
Saying do you love me
Or is that a flash light in your pocket?
She will forget
Tab Hunter and Rock Hudson,
Because their love would  be unrequited.

And she can moan,
Now and in the past and in the future
Requite me love.

Edward N. Halperin