Book Tour: A Crown of Sonnets
Published March 20th, 2008Flying to San Diego
A couple across the aisle told me about
their son’s wife who suffered from post-partum
depression. Prozac meant nursing was out
of the question. They worried about him,
their first grandchild. They looked at Lulu, splayed
in the empty seat, sated and snoring,
and I thought of the tricks that Fortune played,
rendered mothers proud or irate or longing
for release. I said it’s a good thing she’s
taking something. I knew a new mom who
jumped in front of a train, felt she couldn’t please
or manage. The woman said, any mom can feel blue.
We wouldn’t want that, the man said with kindness.
Wouldn’t want Sue to feel such desperate sadness.
De-icing en route to
I tried not to feel the desperate madness
of the man throwing high his magazine,
but there’s just no denying the badness
of a businessman making a scene.
Meanwhile, four calm guys beside me mumbled
and joked, and I struggled to figure out
what linked them. A fair-skinned guy with jumbled
teeth craned his long neck and said, “I’ve no doubt,
that they’re gonna send me off to
I can feel it. I told my mama, you better be
ready. I don’t want you to go into shock,
but I dreamt about driving a Humvee.”
His innocent bravado made me wince,
I haven’t stopped thinking about him since.
Mary Beth Cooke on March 22, 2008
Please send these to the New Yorker immediately! I love them both!
Sarah Olson on April 5, 2008
The beginning of the crown of sonnets is wonderful. It’s interesting that the rhythms in the second sonnet remind me of “Self Portrait of a Heedless Heroine.” Give us more!
Eileen Favorite on April 14, 2008
Yes, I am, in the end, a lover of rhyme. In “Self-Portrait” I tried to bury in the rhyme; here I’m going shamelessly for the old-fashioned end rhyme scheme.