Patricia Spears Jones

Mythologizing Always: Seven Sonnets

I.

Here is a place where declarations

are made/where the heart takes precedence

the gleam goes bland

This is the heart part/intense improvisation

on the I/THOU axis

pity the poor actors (darlings)dust

in their throats (choking) dialogue ancient

(concentrated chatter dictated by clouds)

click of whispers

dammed up phrases     {mythologizing always)

Moans move through their limbs like wind through

Trees talking mad talk 'cross the illuminated

Avenues of hard cities.

III.

Dime falls, your voice rises (fevered)

It's keen, the way the wind whips this

Garbage up and around like a father

Swinging his baby we are holding hands

And yes, giggling no force can stop us now

We are singing all the James Brown songs

We know helpess off-key, but exhilarated

Columbus Avenue breakdown: how the puddles

In the sidewalks radiate splendor/glass

Broken against high-rise buildings beckon

We are hungry the shifting children salsa

And you may be our feast, please linger

You offer me your laughter

I take the sweat from y our cheeks and hum.

IV.

Taste like tears—sea flaked and heated—

Taste like try again and get nowhere,

Maybe, this is the sonnet that mimes itself

Sequences silent and perceptive

The "might have saids"

The stomach-eating rage

The power of conversation is in its

Possibilities of Interpretation

(here's where the mime becomes important

because the words sound so dumb)

And here's where the anxiety dance gets choreographed.

It goes like this: You turn clockwise.

I turn Counter-Clockwise. We stop, stumble

Resolve our steps. Begin again.