The Sonnets of Pork and Cheese

Mrs. Browning

 

my first love, as a poet, at least

a small bookstore editon

with black-shaped block-printed images

a gift to my teenaged self

from a now dead mother

who neither knew or understood

but only feared my words

Elizabeth charmed me

and made me dream of being

being a poet, being a romantic

but most of all,

she made me dream:

of simply being,

as she had been.

 

 

There Must Be Two

 

If they are to be called The Sonnets

and what of the pork, not pig

and cheese, a derivative of

barbarism yet the height

of both the culture of milk

and the culture of food?

My-Dearest-Elizabeth I fear

you would not find me

to be the kind of poet

who compared your eyes to roses

your mouth to the ocean

your hair to the golden clouds

I write of pork and cheese

And trucks and tomatoes