Joel Brouwer
Summer 2023 | Poetry
Sonnet Found in a Borrowed Book
A shadow so rudely diminished the new sculpture
in the boudoir we felt compelled to drag our asses
back out on the hustings and affirm a few values.
We call it our forfeit pageant. The horses in it
surprise me every time, because horses never lie.
Personally, I’m happy it’s harder than ever
for the village harbingers to turn any heads.
Days are deaths, you know that. Our ancestors
plunked us in a bucket, and lately the babies
harmonize like forsaken cicadas, but mercy me.
When ye olde tricks no longer pay the rent
we learn to live with damp kindling and sincerity.
You melt bronze, I crack granite. Then again
I love when you muss me up against an evening.
Joel Brouwer is the author of four books of poems: Exactly What Happened, Centuries, And So, and Off Message. He teaches at the University of Alabama.
Joel recommends Robert Zaretsky’s book, The Subversive Simone Weil: A Life in Five Ideas and Ernst Lubitsch’s film, The Shop Around the Corner.