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