Sonnet: Up the River with a Paddle
by John Kendall Hawkins
.
She gave me a look, a load-bearing beam
supporting a repertoire of sorrows
intense as a still life energy stream
that absorbs the viewer, even borrows
his being and dissolves the field between
self and other, and her eyes were flashing,
and I was held by their delicious green,
and I could feel my own world start crashing.
She was my first love. My gaze paid the price,
overinvesting in old archetypes
of ideal desire. I've had first loves thrice
in the postmod era. I hate love. Cripes!
Open to structural analysis
is my old man river paralysis.
