241
Sonnets From Other Lives: Smoke

Some nights Smoke will walk along the levee.
There on the Moonwalk ‘cross from Jackson Square
where the Mississippi fog hangs gray & heavy,
he’ll stop at random intervals & stare
through the murk. Just watch the river flow
then final hundred miles. He listens for that
sound he swears he heard five years ago.
Gospel son. Back on the night before
Katrina hit I come up to this spot.
Had some things I had to tell the river.
I heard a trumpet blow so bright & hot…
It weren’t human—so sir--He says with a shiver.
I heard it I swear son-sure as you’re born--
it was the ghost of Buddy Bolton’s horn.

238
Sonnets From Other Lives: de Marco

Saw two young dudes sitting in the back
of the bus. Dressed in their best mall punk attire.
Now kids wear Hot Topic in Iraq,
they’re stoned to death & maybe set on fire.
Three tours, a metal leg, a TBI,
I catch myself now & then thinking, Damn!
4000 something U.S. dudes just died
so Iraq can get nostalgic for Saddam?
Had another interview today.
Don’t think I was quite what they expected.
They weren’t hiring machine gunners anyway,
so I expect my application was rejected.
Army strong, right? As in how much can you take
of this shit before you finally break?

240
Sonnets From Other Lives: Trail Notes

first there is a raven’s wooden plonk
followed by the rattle of a crow.
spring has turned the trail into a swamp
& the northern slopes still hold swatches of snow—
frozen slush dark stained by needle mulch
that drip downslope swelling angel creek
into cacophony in the dark gulch
below. the trail’s determined oblique
rises upridge toward a mountain col
& the alpine fairyland of peaks
above the forest’s conifer cathedrals.
a field of talus—switchbacks & we rise
to meet in intersection with the sky.