“Negligee and Hatchet: A Sonnet Crown” by Robert Thomas (poetry ’02)

Negligee and Hatchet: A Sonnet Crown

Sonnet with Blackberries and Clocks

Brambles knotted into the Klamath mist,
swamp pop on the radio, bad coffee
in a good doughnut shop: some things you love
more than me. And the guy who picked you up
when you hitchhiked to Minneapolis,
when you had to go AWOL from the sun.
The way he didn’t say a word and then
he did—how the sky blushed over Utah
as if it knew you were hitting on it,
and I love that you hit on everything:
fig jam, for fuck’s sake, and closets and clocks
and libraries Open 24 Hours. . . .
You love them more too, and there’s real snow now
falling like secrets in the Oakland hills.

[…continue reading the award winning sonnet crown at Nimrod.]