Monday, October 26, 2009

Italian Sonnet One: To Comfort a Sharp Girl

To Comfort a Sharp Girl


You are wandering through England with no one

to worry, wonder if a too-smooth man

might latch his fancy on your child-like hands

that crash Rachmaninoff, then quick, have done

with you. You brushed our city from your pants,

which color splattered and caked with sand,

had once been worn at night by your dead mum

who stayed awake to paint and curse her hands


for standing stubbornly two steps below

mastery. She left you deepened by loss—

seductive, small and violent you hurled

a lamp against a wall, behaved as though

you’d sighed. Wide-eyed I followed you across

your wars, coaxed gentle until fists uncurled.



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