184
Sonnets From Other Lives: Rod

Guy comes in this morning with this Vette--
says it's runnin rough. I think --No shit.
Black smoke from the tailpipe--you can bet
pistons're shot. So then I look at it.
Thirty thousand miles with no oil change.
I say --You killed the engine on a cherry
‘86 Vette! Dude goes all insane
on me! Just then my daughter Jeri
calls--sounding high but I can never tell
for sure. She's tellin me that she needs money--
how she got laid off again. I think-- Like hell!
But then I'm all --How much you need honey?
Meanwhile the Vette guy's making this huge scene…
Why can't people just take care of their machines?

183
Sonnets From Other Lives: Antoine
Looking back I shoulda had a clue.
“Love is blind” to quote the old cliché.
The song says “breaking up is hard to do”
but they’ve made all that easier. These days
you get a “Dear John text & find your number
has been blocked on your BF’s mobile phone.
Like you’re just supposed to go—O bummer—
& leave the double dealing bitch alone.
Did he forget that I am an IT
god? That I hacked his whole life long ago?
Just look at all this stuff he bought for me
on Amazon! Too bad he didn’t know.
O honey sure you can break up with me.
Deal is bitch you can't do it for free.
Deal is bitch you can’t do it for free.

182
Sonnets From Other Lives: The Drug War

They have a warrant they don’t have to knock.
Y’hear a crash & O shit—there they are.
Imperial Storm Troopers smash your locks
& put machine guns in your face. Bizarre.
All I get from my poor hungover brain
is -I think I just saw this on TV.
They’re all yelling pointing guns & it’s insane
but real—y’know? & I’m thinking
WTF? They’re screaming --Where’s the shit?
& pulling out drawers--tearing up the place.
They find a quarter ounce of pot. That’s it.
Then this cop comes in—a weird look on his face--
& looks anxiously around at all the mess.
Turns out that they got the wrong address.

182
Sonnets From Other Lives: Haruki

This feeling reminds him of déjà vu.
It’s the opposite though--for he is forgetting
exactly which airport he’s passing through.
He won’t find this to be at all upsetting.
When it happens he just plays it like a game
in which he looks for clues: ball caps or jerseys--
it’s cheating when some signage says the name
of the airport. So the sport’s absurd--he
plays it for the pleasure he derives
from being—for a moment—disconnected
from the fixed agenda of the frequent flyer.
The imaginary unexpected
will suffice for Haruki tonight
as he hurries to make his connecting flight.

181
Sonnets From Other Lives: Party of 6

party of 6 at table 22--
lunching, texting, talking, & kvetching:
-- anyone besides me feel like you
have some evil app that is attaching
itself to your brain & somehow making it
hyper vigilant? --everything needs
immediate attention! —this is how we live
our lives in this emerging century.
--raise your hand if you are taking xanax.
it gets a laugh tho no one’s hand goes up
-- we are all living lives of quiet panic.
as the conversation ebbs & flows
not once do they look up from their phones

180
Sonnets From Other Lives: Dr. Lear

The seminar eventually convenes,
although attendance is unusually low.
On a warm spring day a talk on Ancient Greek
drama fails draw a crowd. Although
Professor Lear is known in certain circles
for her scholastic prowess in the field,
her undergraduates don’t read the journals,
& Sophocles comes off as too unreal
for their world of snap gratification.
Recently widowed, she hopes her course reveals
to her students a hard won observation:
Eventually all of us come to see
that we are heroes cast in our own tragedy.

179
Sonnets From Other Lives: Seattle Solstice

As these things do, it started with a dare,
a group of friends & too much alcohol.
So next weekend is the Fremont Fair
wouldn’t it be awesome if we all
rode nekkid on our bikes in the parade?
At that point it seemed like cool idea.
Later though—I don’t know, I’m afraid
of being recognized & that could be a
awkward if my students see their teacher’s
naked butt ride by—Mom that’s Ms. Fagen!
The solution—they wore masks. Their party featured
orcs & other monsters (Nixon, Regan)
as they rode the whole parade bare assed & bold,
but this being Seattle—FUCKING COLD!

178
Sonnets From Other Lives: el Pueblo

At dawn the men with guns enter the village.
No one’s certain who these men might be.
Are they bandits come to kill them all & pillage
their impoverished pueblo? Possibly
they are narcos. Or perhaps guerillas.
They could be soldiers looking for subversives.
It is known that often men like these will kill a
man without explaining just what purpose
his death has served. Best then to do nothing
lest something causes them to take offense.
People scurry into their huts—rushing
to shutter windows & begin the tense
wait for what fate has in store today.
Huddling in darkened rooms, they pray.

177
Sonnets From Other Lives: Gilbert

Gilbert emerges from the theater
into the soft air of a summer night,
he stops to orient--then he sees her,
standing just across the street. Alright—
he thinks—she hasn’t seen me yet,
hidden as I am amidst this pack
of cinephiles. She lights a cigarette.
She’s smoking now? He is certain back
when they were together she abstained.
She waves. At him? No at another man.
Gilbert watches, trying to ascertain
whether they are lovers. O to understand
this missing thing he calls his phantom limb.
(Its freaky how much that guy looks like him.)

176
Sonnets From Other Lives: Grace

In the photograph they look so young--
her parents with their gay bedazzled smiles.
She found the faded snapshot in among
the detritus of what once had been their lives.
Her mother, vamping like an ingénue,
stands beside her father in his tux--
his Martini glass raised in a salute
to the golden gift of their good luck.
That Great American mid century
was in full swing & they were swinging too.
This was before the infidelities
caught up with them—before the pills & booze
of Grace’s aching childhood memories.
She’d never known that once they’d been happy.

175
Sonnets From Other Lives: The Regulars

Never thought he’d leave. I thought that he
had sunk his roots so far into this town
that we’d bury him here. The Maple Tree
Inn is mostly empty. So whose round
is it? I’m dry. All the Regulars
are drinking at their customary stations.
Nearly every drinker in the bar
thinking--To just up & leave friends & relations…
Someone puts a dollar in the jukebox
The Wichita Lineman fills the room.
For one verse and a chorus no one talks.
Joyce sets down a round then takes a broom--
& sweeps. Everybody knows it’s getting late.
Still, they drink & think about own escapes.

174
Sonnets From Other Lives: Ward

He wakes up, sees the clock, 3:43.
What was it that he heard or did not hear
in the dark place where he dreams his dreams?
A child’s whimper? That familiar fear
has awakened too & left the dream
to press its crushing weight down on his heart.
He has to get up . They’ll be no more sleep
tonight. He knows this drama—knows his part
is to keep the vigil faithfully. His wife
shudders restlessly in her own dream.
In the child’s room small signs of life
still abide—his toys untouched. Silently
he stares down at the empty bed. Moonlight
confirms the nightmare for another night.

173
Sonnets From Other Lives: Eli

When she accidently pocket-dialed her
husband, she didn’t know his voice mail faithfully
recorded every goddamn freakin word
of a conversation she thought he
would never ever hear …I said I was
going to the gym. He wouldn’t question
that. He likes to think that I work out
to look good for him.
--I wouldn’t mention….
A second voice—most definitely male…
familiar…who is it? –..to your husband
exactly what our workouts here entail.
So there it is. He stares at the phone—stunned--then
reckoning how much longer she’ll be gone,
gets up & throws her clothes out on the lawn..

172
Sonnets From Other Lives: Omar

For three weeks he could really see the ball--
reading pitches by watching the stitches
of the ball reveal their little mysteries. All
month he had been granted meaty pitches
that seemed to linger the strike zone &
beg his bat to smash their little faces.
He was cranking out the ribbies on demand.
Slapping bloopers right between the bases.
But now he’s o-for-three in the ninth inning
with two men on & down by two. One out.
He’s thinking too much now. Ideas of winning
& losing crowd the plate. He runs the count
to three & two-- taps one low & away …
Six-four-three. A classic double play.

171
Sonnets From Other Lives: Constance

In the dark arts of Magical Thinking
Constance is a Sorcerer First Class.
We see her now clandestinely drinking
her third luncheon Martini. She will pass
unnoticed by her supervisor
through the gauntlet of the office staff
to her cubicle with no one wiser.
Cloaked in invisibility, she laughs
at danger, blunders, gaffes & unpaid bills.
Hakuna matata . She is sure she
can use her potion powered magic skills
to achieve invulnerability.
But the Dark Arts still present some risk.
At 2:15 she’s snoring at her desk.