Sonnettics

Her dress conforms like water to the curves
of pending birth, of belly, breasts, and hips.
Then I must be the pilot who observes
the wish that barely flows across her lips.
She knows that I have waited for this sign
to which my heart attaches a command.
My will to move, to act, becomes divine
as I reach out to take her holy hand.
Our steps are short, respectful of the gift
of life she bears.  The path is not too long.
And as we crest the rise our spirits lift
together, like the harmony of song.
She sighs at all the beauty in her view.
I watch her there and find I’m sighing too.

The leaves fell wet and gold,
stuck matted to the grass,
decayed and sprang as mushrooms
in the dank indian summer.
I smelled the rot of fall
when the rain stopped beating
darkly on the roof and
the wind stopped blowing cowardly.
Too sick to risk the mud
this year I open the curtain
barely, breathe on the window
and call this life,
behind the sterile glass,
beneath the hand of god.

It’s not my place to interfere with faith.
God knows why people do the things they do.
He seemed a decent guy.  He kept his place
the way a neighbor likes his neighbor to.
His boy seemed happy—played out in the yard.
His wife, a little gray, but still looked good.
I’m sure this thing has hit her pretty hard.
It’s really such a quiet neighborhood.
So when he screamed of course it woke my wife.
And then she woke me. Made me call the cops.
I still can see the shaking, bloody knife.
I see it in slow motion as it drops.
His eyes are wide; he screams, completely wild,
“My god, my god has let me kill my child!”