Here is the body
—sonnet-cento after Ruth Stone
With casual thread between fingers
was I shoveled in with the others?
This was before the war:
too much salt, burned edges.
Who lives in the house when I’m away
in the heart of the eruption
your silent dialogue with me,
I will give you this one elastic day.
Your body naked, seized with its own grief.
“Here,” it says, “touch me here.”
Darkness that is and is not
could be heaven or hell or limbo.
I am an epidermal stranger.
You ripple through me like slant light.
But no one came no one came
—sonnet-cento after Anne Sexton
There is no safe place
like an old stone tree
calling me, calling you
my sin and nothing more.
My green green hands
heard the new fruit drop
the believing money
myself, caught between
the grapes and the thorns
mouths calling mine, mine, mine
my face, your face
me with your garments
but not with grief
I am almost someone.
This is not what I meant
—sonnet-cento after Sylvia Plath
A vulturous boredom pinned me
to this tree very quietly.
Let there be snakes
rayed round a candle flame
a melding of shapes in a hot rain
untouched and untouchable
some angel-shape worth wearing
with one tin eye.
Tongue a rose-colored arrow.
Mouth full of pearls.
Feet seem to be saying:
Gray birds obsess my heart.
It unclaps, brown as a leaf, and loud.
I shall never get out of this!