Sonnet

Tilt the placeless waver of this moving
over the wanton waters—spiral storm
hates the harmonies the days conform,
orage orgueil, an intenser proving

lashing its vassals, a form of loving.
Dolor, choler, how the moods deform
this ruse of light red rudiments perform—
horse and horse, fox fox, fast flick and fauving,

emblems in their leap and scrap, the livid nerving
worlds consume, design, and name a grieving.
Your impenitent animal: sky-pelt,

net and gnaw, and claw and fleet and swerving;
day’s raw quiddities that roar a leaving;
eye-gold arrows, pierce-pulse; a failing felt.   

—Karen Volkman

Karen Volkman is the author of Crash’s Law and Spar, winner of the 2002 James Laughlin Award and the Iowa Poetry Prize.

Originally published in the October/November 2003 issue of Boston Review