Janet I. BUCK

FROZEN SONNETS

Gray bands of smoke are still alive.
CNN revisits ash. I don't resist
the black remote that
whispered waking in my ear.
Picnic benches near the towers
are shards of limbs.
Steel we thought we were we weren't.
First waters of old liberties
see seaweed strangling a pearl.

Cranes are ticking dinosaurs
reminding me to shave
thick stubble of the hate
before that final coat of rust.
Ellis Island grows a layer of winter ice.
The harbor hiccups with a ship.
Every plane that passes in the autumn sky
leaves bootprints on a nervous floor.

Res gestae digs up poles for flags.
I didn't know these palettes well.
A songstress slumbering in streets
between the stoplights stuck on red.
Death rattles and we sing a hymn
the best we can with thwarted lungs.
Grief is always smelling salts,
mace in eyes of apathy,
seasoning on cantaloupe.

They struck first, a chant that hangs
like gnats on going bowls of fruit.
We have trees of pears to pick.
The missing call me from my sleep.
The lives, the kisses, sugar cane,
frozen sonnets of an iris
bees will never bother with.
Each ovary, each ivory moon,
a stranger under lids of frost.
Lovers they will never have
become a ghost in vapor
of November's fog.

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