Sandra Simonds: Two Sonnets
IN REVERSE CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER, THE WORLD IS FORMED
Then undone, undid, undo. Into you’ll see
until. No till nor record keeping, no
tock unbinding. No backward
grandfather clock unearthing. All shovels
merely confounding, a finding
out made too late unwinding. The wind
is in this too; it is complicit. Come
see it with it with it touch it. Too much
wind topples the world like singing Bowie into
a chimney. The world of boats that flip on their sides
tucking seaside into graveside like a mommy.
Giving and granting, this is my erasure. The ghosts
whip up like furiousness. Above their holes
they dance and taunt–gigantic at noon.
AMERICAN SONGS
This was going to be a gorgeous crown
of sonnets about atoms and bombs.
to tell you the truth, though, I don’t know jack
about crowns or Adam and Eve. But isn’t that what’s
awesome about being an American poet?
You can just take your ignorance
and run with it or rename it bravado.
You can just say, “History, you’re a ho,” and then
Lady Mary Wroth will crawl back
into her English hole. Everything
I say here I own. I’m my own
master of this here zone. I write
what I sing like karaoke. I sing what I write
like Kryptonite.
from The Sonnets, by Sandra Simonds, Bloof Books 2014
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