what mother might have hoped for me

After ruining so many jacket sleeves outside the recital hall foyer
myself tucked between the last stone bench and the Eastern wall
I can hardly care about the cold, wet spot down the breast of my shirt
that clings to my spasming chest.

Fifty years, and what’s to hope for next?
What I might have to offer those withering bones
my mere comfort, a brief smile,
I’m too poor to afford.

Sonnet

What comfort, night, what comfort have you the right to dangle
out in front of me, like I were some desperate
shore born fish, lured by such temptations
as this? What salted ambrosia do you hide
inside your inked arms?

Outspread, the sky, like love foretold, enfolds in surface lights
the tense and tide shorn bay forlorn, deceives
the grieving layman maid into believing
she could wade through quieted waters out to sea and drift
unbattered, into divinity.

Conspiracy! Conspiracy! I’ll own the charge
against these natural wonders, large
though they may be, all those who ponder must recall
the almightiest God’s quickest to damn us all.