a fifteen-minute sonnet on a title by Veronica Patterson
No not this day with all its sudden snow
and not the sunshine sliding through the white.
Not my children, though I call them mine
and feed them, drive them where they need to go.
My car? It’s in my husband’s name. My home?
The bank owns part of it. The words I write?
I steal from all my heroes. My delight?
I learned it from my mother. There is no
computer, cell phone, cookbook, shirt or cat
that I can point to and say I own that—
for anything I think is mine can steal
away like snow in sun or autumn leaves
in trees. The less I hold the more I feel
whatever owns the trees is living me.
Best words for me,
“for anything I think is mine can steal
away like snow in sun or autumn leaves
in trees.
A tight little sonnet, and in 15 minutes? Or is that hyperbole?