{
 "id": "edgar-lee-masters/willard-fluke",
 "title": "Willard Fluke",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Edgar Lee Masters",
 "poet_slug": "edgar-lee-masters",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Spoon River Anthology",
 "book_slug": "spoon-river-anthology",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 53,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1916,
  "venue": "Spoon River Anthology (1916)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/spoonriveranthol021mast"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/edgar-lee-masters_spoon-river-anthology",
  "file": "spoon-river-anthology.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://web.archive.org/web/20080723131115/http://spoonriveranthology.net/spoon/river/originalOrder/",
   "https://archive.org/details/spoonriveranthol021mast"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 19,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 57,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "My wife lost her health,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And dwindled until she weighed scarce ninety pounds.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then that woman, whom the men",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Styled Cleopatra, came along.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And we⁠—we married ones",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All broke our vows, myself among the rest.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Years passed and one by one",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Death claimed them all in some hideous form,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I was borne along by dreams",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of God’s particular grace for me,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I began to write, write, write, reams on reams",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the second coming of Christ.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then Christ came to me and said,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Go into the church and stand before the congregation",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And confess your sin.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But just as I stood up and began to speak",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I saw my little girl, who was sitting in the front seat⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My little girl who was born blind!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "After that, all is blackness!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}