Embedded Files
5 Sonnets
Is there is there a moral to the is
there is there is a moral to the story
when we left dark it was there a story
waiting to be dragged behind there is a
there where the story ended we traced our
steps back to discover what was buried
in the moral was the story long since
anyone felt confident in what had
been telling who told beneath where it was
when we unearthed the story you always
did have a memory for details is
the moral of the story not having
answered and thinking of that right before
bed is there a moral or a story
Maybe it didn’t happen that way maybe
we didn’t see what we saw the blood smeared
on the windshield as a hawk shoots across
the blue sky forget that black ice on the
road the car swerves the glass spiderwebs then
smooths out again it wasn’t blood it was
gas at impact the whole thing blows she pats
him on the back the girl watering the
flowers hears the shot drops the pitcher which
shatters on the floor they kiss one last time
she collapses in his arms the phone rings
we can’t believe we didn’t see what
we thought we saw a man lying in bed
falling out of a stiff dream
I can’t have been the only one to judge
that once love splits like an egg like a sponge
that melts in your hands we must try to turn
to lift as we fall downstairs trembling to
yell into a fist our judgment having
once tasted each other we felt we saw
and years later the sun crashed into a
sense of having to piss real bad but the
pit of one’s stomach to swing from the doom
the decision to leave the pass broken
up the rush going the other way does
anyone still remember or care does
it matter he said thinking of all those
times another stood by watching it go
The moment the moment came it kept going
farther and farther away he tried to
hold on to the wings of his breath but the
moment slipped further or was it he who
said look at me I’m a big boy pinky
swear you won’t stay mad all night if I poop
a little on your hallway rug it won’t
hurt anything or what did it mean when
Keats wrote ‘in language strange she said “I love
thee true”’ was he talking about the words
or the way she said them with a funny
accent or was it fairy talk I’ll put it
into a song I’ll dance while I sing
you’ll have to remember how it all goes
First he imagines a form then something
to put inside it fills slowly from top
to bottom a door opening behind
which a dark nothing that he blindly
rushes to enter a fell creature that
bursts out of the shadow of memory
to tickle having been lying in bed
when it first happened watching the light move
in a different room which was his prayer
a promise across the brightly lit lake
of a woman’s smile so that he knows for
certain he’s loved in that moment of all
the nights of the world crossing and uncrossing
his legs to open and close and be love
David Hadbawnik is a poet, translator, and medieval scholar. Recent books include a translation of the Aeneid (Shearsman, 2023); an edited volume, Postmodern Poetry and Queer Medievalisms (Medieval Institute Publications, 2022); and a book of poetry, Holy Sonnets to Orpheus and Other Poems (Delete Press, 2018). He currently lives in the Minneapolis area with his wife and family.
Copyright © 2024 by David Hadbawnik, all rights reserved. This text may be used and shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of Copyright law. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on other terms, in any medium, requires the notification of the journal and consent of the author
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