Sonnets (I)

SONNET I PRE-SURGERY

These elements exist to complement, and you to choose
your life in this. That farmer of atoms with shells like onion skin
stands along the soil of your body on the gurney. Your eyes laid loose,
softened with saltwater and milk, opened, like a flower in a bowl, petals on rim,
by his row of scalpels. The blend of sweat and soul as your heart is popped
out of its socket, the small lump replaced with a silicon pump. Trust
that scientist with his diamond knife, carving a hole in your breast,
fitting you with a submarine gun in your belly, red-ringed. Such
a pretty little thing; your rosebud Kevlar mouth. You are no less
than the first and last hero, but who can you save? In this bitter maze,
learn that love, and running away, are one and the same.

SONNET II VICTOR THE INVENTOR IN LOVE

You are not tall, but tall
tall like the honey-toothed spring, its baby-blue maw
seen from your doorway, that long fall
you’ve broken in three places. You are not small, but small
small like the hand holding up the weight
of the cavern of your love between the trees.
The body which is your body first and
a weapon second, would you let me in
to rest for a while, to undo you strand by strand?
Oh, oh, will you, sweet girl, be mine?
And which of us is the doctor, and which Frankenstein?

SONNET III AFTER CRITICALLY INJURING AN INNOCENT

Arms, all daylight dirty and burnt day lily, fingertips
their snapped stems. God, where are you
now? Here in the pool of dirt, in the leaves of my lips,
counting out what is left, and how of much of this is true?
This, the life I have drawn and quartered, out
of only love? Let me go, please, let me leave where
I can cover my eyes in these dunes, these
bodies, bodies. How many fates are known,
how many white doors but red keys?
Me, arms cut, hair shorn,
Only I can find my form.