Summer Sonnets

By Anthony Opal

Sonnet

the scaffolding of a butterfly boat
above ten darkly schooling syllables
as the body launches from its farthest shore
experiencing all as one layer
among others among the darkness of
the many-splendored objects that fell
from our hands as we took off our pants
and hung them lightly from the birch branches
entering the water without looking
(an airplane passing overhead) it took us
an hour to remember who we were
or how water always appears clearest
from above even though light angles in

Sonnet

my Beatrice touches the trees as she
walks past them with fire ants around her knees
in halos around her knee caps I snap
in two like a river forking east to west
like a sliver of almond between
the teeth of a squirrel I will keep safe
the image of you happy to do what-
ever people used to do before
the fall of the oak tree through the middle
of the street (and now the detour of it all)
“though nothing like the face of a poet
is a flower though not a face with hands
which whisper this is my beloved my
(& the whole garden will suddenly bow)”

Sonnet

bird beak like a rawhide bone remains
enthroned in the orange flesh of a cantaloupe
alongside the pill on the windowsill
I presently take with the smallish lake
of water pooling at the bottom of
my cup which no longer runneth over
in the morning but rather takes its time
like the blue charcoaled sunrise I find
my mind somewhere else between the Pink
Lady apple and the Earl Grey tea steeping
in the white ceramic mug the steam like
transient feathers falling in reverse
to the sound of the elevated train in
the distance I hear through open windows