I need help with this poem "Getting Serious" by Alice Friman.

[greg_jones]

I have to do an annotation on this poem. I read it several times but it's very hard to understand the poem myself. I also tried searching all over the internet for the summary or analysis but couldn't find anything.

Can someone please help me understand this poem ? Line by line if you can. Or, explain how much you can. I will really appreciate it. Here is the link for the poem if you need it.

Thanks..

http://www.breakoutofthebox.com/gettingserious.htm

[quasimodo1]

A short bio from the Poetry Foundation might help you get a handle on her poem... BIOGRAPHY
{Alice Friman once told Contemporary Authors: "My work itself comes from inner conflict, with memory or nature often serving as the jumping off point. I write about love and its poignant impossibilities. My images are, I imagine, mostly from childhood, and seem to be about yearning—the ocean for its beach, the further planets for the sun, the inside to be expressed. As I look back through my work, I see that I use certain symbols—the tattoo for instance—that is yearning consummated; the tattoo is suggestive of the poem itself. Perhaps that is what poetry, then, is for me; the bridge between what yearns and the thing wished for, be it love, warmth, meaning, or home. Only in the writing of the poem is the circuit closed between the perpetual 'I want, I want' and the bliss of 'I have, I have.'"}