Sonnet with Church and Osso Buco
The mystery of the Song of Songs: the priests’
rationalizations of how the Rose
of Sharon is the Church, the bride of Christ,
or Israel, or a barbecue joint
in Tennessee. Does He feedeth among
the lilies sound like that to you? Get real.
Solomon wants to be the Shulamite,
the Rose of Sharon, the Fuchsia of Jane,
to be the one who says come here, my nard
is fragrant as osso buco with thyme.
You know the way a mother’s milk lets down
when she hears a baby cry down the hall?
That’s how I love you. What it does to me
when I hear the click as you shut the door.
Sonnet with Bicycle and Fuse
You lie and become grass, and field, and earth,
and light that binds them. What is empathy
but practicing for your life after death,
when you no longer exists, but I am
the maple on the corner, the yellow
bicycle leaning against it, I am
the striped garter snake on the dunes, I am
the lineman climbing the pole to replace
the fuse, I am the bolt of lightning and
the ten billion beads of rain barraging
Grant Park, and I am the woman walking
home from work across the plaza, slowly
because she’s tired and because she loves
the anarchy of rain on the fountain.
For more of this sonnet crown or other great poetry in Issue 21.2, order now in our online store. Digital copies are only $5.
Robert Thomas’s books include Sonnets with Two Torches and One Cliff (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2023), Bridge (BOA Editions, 2014; PEN Center USA Literary Award for Fiction), and Dragging the Lake (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2006). He has received an NEA fellowship and a Pushcart Prize and lives with his wife in Oakland, California.
