Voilą!
SONNET #1
Childhood
To shift all day in a zippered dress, then tear
from the brake of the bus, down the gravel drive, and leap
the back steps, slam the storm-door, take the stairs
two at a time, and fling the dress in a heap
on my bedroom floor, ease into my brother's old
T-shirt I'd saved from the Goodwill bag for mine,
frayed shorts, the torn red sneakers my mother had told
me to throw away, slam out again
and jump, both boy and girl, the chain-link fence,
just lie without a purpose in the loose
soft grass of the field, letting a garter snake glance
my hand on its passage, before my mother's voice
reached me, calling supper, and this list
of errands on a notepad, this watch on my wrist.
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SONNET #2
The Keepsake
Little sterling medallions of saints you’d safety
pin to your bra— just to keep you covered—
they’d hang below your armpit trembling silvery.
I saw them once through your sheer summer blouse.
The smell of ripening plums all through your house
scented the folded whites of your nurse’s livery.
I’d take two teacups down from the glassed cupboard,
and let the Red Rose steep and the steam get lazy.
I’ve been drinking sweet tea after seven
and staying up so late the morning threatens
blue. My lone cup empty in the night-cool air.
On Sunday I called your house, but you’re in heaven
and there’s no answer, only this silver medallion
of St. Francis and the message of his prayer.
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SONNET #3
On the Ubiquity of Mobile Devices
These days, you can use the internet
in almost any place or situation.
And people like to, every chance they get,
as if they had discovered masturbation—
its thrill, its usefulness for killing time,
its portability—but didn’t grasp
that it can be regarded as a crime
sometimes: in darkened theaters, in class.
You’ve heard this all before: society
without the human touch, etcetera.
If who we are, and what we try to be
online are so distinct, still, better a
fake sense of place than none at all? We’ve seen
the light, and it’s a tiny glowing screen.
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SONNET #4
Calypso Calls on Penelope
Did you buy that load of crap? The bit
about his need to be a handyman,
the touching speech on being “home”—bullshit;
I’m here to tell you why he really ran.
He says he’s back to fix what needs repair.
Truth, dear, he couldn't keep up with my love:
immortal sex, the playful underwear,
my joy in taking equal time above.
Blah, blah, he made that bed, he wants to care;
fact is, he’s slowing down, he’s often tired—
you’ve noticed that he’s started losing hair?
And more and more, he fails to get inspired.
Penelope, honey, you ought to know:
he didn’t want to leave. I made him go.
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SONNET #5
Mower’s Song
The boy who mows my yard
thinks that he once was I.
He pushes pretty hard
under the prairie sky.
He has no belching motor
or right-hand discharge chute,
no madly whirring rotor,
and he’s no longer cute.
Just a front-mounted reel
geared to a rubber wheel,
and that is how the grass
made on the Lord’s Third Day
will fall as fragrant hay
until I too shall pass.
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SONNET #6
Requited Love
Here is the way they rose and bathed and fed
In silence, and in silence got undressed,
And microwaved the supper each thought best,
And meant the words the TV actors said;
Here is her naked hand outstretched in bed
To soothe some dreamed-of other’s knocking chest,
And here her present body, seldom pressed
Awake to his, and here his snoring head;
Here are the things they thought they had to fear,
The figure at the far end of a glance,
The lovely hair’s retreat, the veins’ advance,
The skulls a little clearer every year,
Neglected taxes, mice, the common cold,
Shares held too long, the child they’d never hold.
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SONNET #7
Film Noir
You know that, in the movies, they must meet—
those lovers whom the script has torn apart.
Though they loved with a passion bittersweet,
war or bad karma upped their applecart.
He perhaps deceived by some blond tart,
or she, to keep her brother out of jail,
with weeping eyes said yes to some old fart.
Fadeout with violins and nightingale.
Flash forward twenty years. A fairy tale.
They meet again—what luck!—both wiser, older.
And he is rich and strong; she fair and frail.
Oh, happy end. He reaches to enfold her.
That's when I blow my nose, cause in real life
I go to films and you go to your wife.
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SONNET #8
The Baby and the Bathwater
Our fabulous account of the medieval world supposes
that the lord of his household would bathe first,
followed by other men, then women, then children—
with the unfortunate baby being plunged last into sinfully
black waters. Hence the catchphrase, “Don’t throw the baby
out with the bathwater.” –Elizabeth Pollard Thistlethwaite
Let it go, let it all go down the drain—
The forest ashes where a witch was burned,
Dirt from the cellar where a queen was slain,
No heir escaping death, and nothing learned,
The crescent moons of darkness under nails,
Ditch-digger’s drops of sweat, the blood from soil
That sprouted fingertips, the slick from snails
Where the butchered peasants were left to spoil:
Let it swirl, let it all swirl down the drain—
Let murderous grime be curlicues to gyre
Around the blackened mouth, let mortal bane
Be gulped, and waste be drink for bole and briar.
Here’s a new-washed babe; marvel what man mars,
The flesh so innocent it gleams like stars.
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SONNET #9
Last Dance
With Hanna barely old enough to walk
And you just young enough, both of you clung
In playful counterbalance to your cane,
Weaving through the living room among
A dozen arms readied to intervene.
And neither of you bothered to explain
The secret of the century between
An old man and a girl; you didn’t talk
About the wisdom middle age obscures,
For all that we could notice was the sum
Of years—though ninety-nine of them were yours,
Her only one kept close, as if she knew
By some familiar sense of peace that you
Would leave reluctantly, as she had come.
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SONNET #10
For Two Lindens Newly Planted on Avenue D
Surrender now, you haven’t got a chance—
between the flood of piss from every cur
that cocks a leg, the daily whipped offense
of bike chain lacerations, the errant car
that jumps the curb to gall a tender strip
from you; and box-cutter boys who deface
your trunks, the burning road-salt I.V. drip
of winter, the corner cuchifrito place
dumping its fry-pot grease by night, your spread
festooned with deli-bags, and groping shorn-
off limbs where trucks backed in to unload beer.
Should you survive the year, you anguished pair,
then prove us snags all wrong—the standing dead—
fly pale green flags, this desperate April morn!
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