Sonnet for Endless Geometry
Spent all week searching for my ring from the antique
mall. Amber on silver, cold melt. I rearranged the bedroom,
pulled up fraying carpet, swam through the bushes.
I’ve gone years like this before, hunting for a small language,
a comma in the eye of a cloud. To wear something better
than skin, a face not begging for a fist. If we play the game
where I say the first word that comes to mind & you say ring,
I’ll go cloak. Or maybe the circle that fits around your neck.
Funny how loose tugs at noose, sometimes loses. I walk my head
down the hallway of the oven just to be safe. Imagine never-ending
lights. I burn the dirty laundry just to see what might shine.
In the shower, the world is cylindrical. Ribbons of water laugh
out my name. I say halo & you blow smoke. A mirror of ghosts.
There’s a chance we’ll never be whole again, but lost isn’t all loss.
mall. Amber on silver, cold melt. I rearranged the bedroom,
pulled up fraying carpet, swam through the bushes.
I’ve gone years like this before, hunting for a small language,
a comma in the eye of a cloud. To wear something better
than skin, a face not begging for a fist. If we play the game
where I say the first word that comes to mind & you say ring,
I’ll go cloak. Or maybe the circle that fits around your neck.
Funny how loose tugs at noose, sometimes loses. I walk my head
down the hallway of the oven just to be safe. Imagine never-ending
lights. I burn the dirty laundry just to see what might shine.
In the shower, the world is cylindrical. Ribbons of water laugh
out my name. I say halo & you blow smoke. A mirror of ghosts.
There’s a chance we’ll never be whole again, but lost isn’t all loss.
Half Sonnet for a Brimming Carcass
When I found the ring I buried it in the backyard
the way one might plant a raisin hoping for grapes
or wine. I drank rainwater to swell the jewel in my body.
At a young age we learn the pearl is covered in guts.
I’m on the cusp of kneeling before the rotting pear tree,
naming it godlessness, asking it to say a prayer for me,
for the holes I’ve shoveled with blood, closed lightning.
the way one might plant a raisin hoping for grapes
or wine. I drank rainwater to swell the jewel in my body.
At a young age we learn the pearl is covered in guts.
I’m on the cusp of kneeling before the rotting pear tree,
naming it godlessness, asking it to say a prayer for me,
for the holes I’ve shoveled with blood, closed lightning.
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Philip Schaefer’s collection Bad Summon (University of Utah Press, 2017) won the Agha Shahid Ali Poetry Prize, while individual poems have won contests published by The Puritan, Meridian, & Passages North. His work has been featured on Poem-A-Day, Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, and in The Poetry Society of America. He runs a modern Mexican restaurant called The Camino in Missoula, MT.
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