170
Sonnets From Other Lives: K.C.

Marco—she calls. A voice answers—Polo—
from somewhere behind her. Where is he?
Once more she calls—Marco—but now Polo-
Polo—Polo. Everybody seems
to want to play. How’s she gonna find
him now? The band will start soon then no way
will he hear her. Jesus! He’s her ride.
Why didn’t they arrange a meeting place?
Will she have to make the sixty mile drive
in a taxi? She can’t call her dad
at two AM or he’ll skin her alive.
What was she thinking? Now she’s getting mad.
Am I going to have to find my own way home
because my boyfriend keeps losing his fucking phone?

169
Sonnets From Other Lives: Iris

She’s looking out the window through the rain
spangled glass. So what if we just go
on holiday? Pack up & catch a train
to anywhere but here. He doesn’t know
if she is really serious or not.
She throws these things out sometimes & when he
reacts she laughs & says--That wasn’t what
I meant. I was just talking. But should he
ignore her she’ll get sulky so he asks--
Where to love? But she just stares outside.
It isn’t clear exactly what his task
is until he notices her cry-
ing silently. He stands & holds her.
Is it me-- she asks--or is it getting colder?

166
Sonnets From Other Lives: Osama

He’s a stranger in a stranger land
than he’d imagined. For here wealth creates
anxiety. He doesn’t understand.
Our native bluster masks it so it takes
effort for one to see behind the curtain.
Upon hearing his unfortunate name
authorities quickly adopt a certain
edge. Hands drift toward holsters. At the same
time he’s all too conscious of his hands.
He has come here for an education
& he’s learned things this land he hadn’t planned
on learning. e.g. How the strongest nation
in the world fears him. It’s now clear
why: We don’t see it is ourselves we fear.

165
Sonnets From Other Lives: Nina

The infant’s bawling has gone existential.
It’s erupting out of every molecule
of her being as though the essential
thread connecting her to life had cruel-
ly & agonizingly been frayed
into snake-like hyper sensitized neurons--
each screaming outrage at her budding brain.
Poor thing. She hasn’t been in this life long
enough to know her awful discontent
will--like an ear-wormed song--be played in
the background of a lifetime spent
muddling through existence. Then again,
let’s not dwell on that. Come child & rest
your aging soul against your mother’s breast

167
Sonnets From Other Lives: Jonah

Eschatology let Jonah down.
It’s Sunday morning. Everything’s still standing.
Jonah wonders—What do I do now?
He has nothing left now after handing
all his net worth to Family Radio.
(Who needs money when the Rapture comes?)
Now he’s bewildered. They had all been so
certain. Now he feels a kind of numb
void where once the certitudes of faith
had protected him from fear & doubt.
He quit his job and now at 58
he’s feeling trapped & can’t see a way out.
These are the wages of the sin of pride.
He’ll find out now how well the Lord provides.

164
Sonnets From Other Lives: Kari

She made a ring of stones around herself--
setting driftwood pillars in between the stones.
Safe inside the center she could tell
her tales—a task best is done alone
where no marauding brothers can intrude.
A magic spell to keep the boys away…
The world inside her mind could now exclude
everyone--even the sea. The day--
all sand & clouds & watchers of the sea
disappears as driftwood unicorns
gallop all around her perfect city
in the golden moments before she is torn
away from her imagination by
the cold onslaught of the incoming tide.

163
Sonnets From Other Lives: Jane

She has the most ordinary eyes.
You pass right over them without a glance,
forget her name in seconds. No surprise.
But you might notice, should you look askance
in her direction that she never looks your way,
or any certain way for that matter. Instead
she’s scanning everything. You couldn’t say
for sure what she is seeing but her head
moves purposefully, though you never
really see her look at you per se.
Spooky. But then really would it ever
cross your mind to turn & look her way?
She’s a small detail you never notice. You
don’t know how much that she knows about you.

162
Sonnets From Other Lives: Glen

His meeting is tomorrow. Glen steps out
for an evening walk. The drink can wait.
The hotel towers like a brave redoubt
among the ruins. Here & there the great
bones of the old city still protrude
through the noise of modern slap & dash
architecture--rotting in rude
ravages of rust. Before the crash
opera houses & assembly lines--
brick & mortar shrines to Capital--
thrummed with arias of better times.
He thinks he’ll have that drink now. He’s aghast
at his vision of the future in the past.

161
Sonnets From Other Lives: Ray & Celeste

six hours--four miles--fifteen hundred feet
of elevation gain. the day was hot
& dusty. she & I were nearly beat,
but when we saw that turquoise water we both got
nekkid--dared & dove into a lake
that weeks ago was still covered in snow.
the brief immersion & the fast escape
washed away the dust & sweat & left us glow-
ing in the early evening sun. we pitched our tent,
cooked dinner, hung our food--hoping the bears
would be too dumb to pull it down--then went
scrambling above the lake. night air
crystallized the sky. we watched the show:
starlight from a billion years ago.

160
Sonnets From Other Lives: Justin

In the morning --they said--you know you’ll feel better.
In the meantime Justin felt like crap.
Her text was a post-modern “Dear John” letter
that left him feeling like he’d just been slapped
in the face. I didn’t see that coming--
he thought over the second whiskey sour.
Or was it the third? He was becoming
number & more empty by the hour.
His new goal for the night: oblivion.
The guys were generous with sympathy
while having --he knew--way too much damn fun
medicating Justin’s misery.
By the fifth round they were all playing a game
called “Make the J forget the bitch’s name.”

159
Sonnets From Other Lives: Les

It wasn’t what he said but how he said it
that got Les feeling weird & paranoid.
Take all the time you need--he said. Les let it
go at first. He knew he should avoid
his natural instinct to fear the worst.
But was he being set up? Was this job
designed by management to cull the first
victims of the coming layoffs? God—
he needed a Xanex—maybe a martini.
It’s nothing asshole. Jesus—get a grip.
Just go & do your job you fucking weenie.
He sat down at his cube & took a sip
of tepid coffee from an old chipped cup.
He never could believe he measured up.

Sonnets From Other Lives: Merrylee

All the things that she wanted from him
were not worth what he wanted from her.
Much as she loved the way his slim,
rangy body moved & the assured
way his hands could bring her back to life--
it was her paycheck he loved best she too well knew.
She’d written all the “loans” off as the price
women like her had to pay if they were to
take rovers like him into their bed,
but lately he’d gone hard & even cruel.
That crossed a line—him messing with her head.
He can take her money but she will not be his fool.
He’s coming by tonight. She’s thinking though
she’ll wait ‘til morning to tell him to hit the road.

Sonnets From Other Lives: crash

when you have no choice you have no fear
did he just hear that on the radio?
everything so bright precise & clear
the details stand out strangely as he goes
sliding down the highway on his back:
sparks from the bike skidding on its side
his helmet grinding loudly on the tarmac
his amygdale--now in overdrive--
records every detail in slow motion
a broken bottle – white clouds of a mackerel sky
flash by--he notes it all without emotion--
the rushing concrete wall-- impending impact
surreal --he thinks --before it all goes black