Hazel Tells LaVerne

Machan's diction is extremely informal in her poem Hazel Tells LaVerne.  Her vernacular appears to be African American.  She uses words such as "musta", tryin ta", and improper English like "well i screams".  I noticed that there is no punctuation or capitalization in this poem.  This, combined with the lax usage of diction, makes this poem seem very personal, as though a friend were sitting across from me telling me the story herself.  The poem was kind of a sick twist on the old legend of The Princess and the Frog.  It was the practical version; no woman in her right mind would put her lips to a frog's skin without hesitation.  To me, the poem reminds me of growing up.  When we're young and naive, we believe (or at least WANT to believe) in fairy tales of princes and princesses, magic and mystery.  As we grow older and more mature, though, as Hazel apparently has, we are thrust into the real world.  And the real world has no room for fairy tales.  The poem might also be about how we can sometimes throw away amazing opportunities which present themselves to us, merely because they seem too far-fetched or too good to be true.