My first attempt at a rhyming sestina (happy “pocs”?). Any humor is probably unintentional. Happy Valentine's Day.
I say, “it could be worse. We’re not in pain.”
“Sometimes you run out of ado to make”
She pauses eating toast, (as always, plain) –
And, quietly, as if it were a wake.
Looks out and notes “it has begun to rain.”
Though her meaning I still refuse to take.
You can’t go back. Love has no second take.
Sometimes the script has laughs when you’re in pain.
The curtain lifts each morning when you wake.
The stage? Boring, and all the actors plain.
This is the monologue I start to make,
Before I am drowned out by starting rain.
The thin windows struggle against the rain,
In a tone I didn’t know that I could take,
As the walls shake as if they were in pain,
I plan our tomorrow. “At eight, we wake”
My voice flat and lifeless as the plain.
“What for breakfast, do you think, we should make?
“What for breakfast do you think we should make?”
I repeated myself through the crashing rain,
Because the storm my airy words did take.
The din outside has become quite a pain:
We should decide on this before we wake.
For reasons which, I think, are clearly plain.
The door flies off, connecting house and plain.
Repair impossible for me to make.
But on her face, rather than any pain,
A calm expression do her features take.
That of a queen, comfortable in her rain,.
Rather than a mourner at her own wake.
At this, my perception begins to wake,
Her initial meaning becoming plain:
It is who you eat with, not what you make.
She throws the door open, faces the rain.
“Take everything you feel you need to take.”
She smiles at me. “I doubt we’ll be in pain.”
Free from pain, your hand is all that I take,
We make our way into the sheeting rain –
And drown in plain human voices’ wake.
Labels: Poetry