So long sonnet

Dear gooseflower, dear smiling wolf, dear
gone-so-long, dear naked girl wandering.

Smote up, smashed-through, smeared with inky blue,
impaled on your small voice, kind & sharp.

A kind of sharp noise: two years of voicemail,
messages stuffed with fish—our stand-in, for, you know.

The bachelor’s buttons twist in the wind.
Frantic Frenchmen whistle at scissoring legs.

Cut out this shape. Then this one. Trim again.
Repeat & fill, repeat & fill. I am emptied.

*

Dear never-there, dear thin brown container,
Dear sitting on Brenda’s knee & laughing at Laurel.

How much life have I taken from you. How are you not
but a fragile veneer, how can you still say je t’adore?