Faye Brinsmead
Sonnet against 14-line boxes
After Johannes Göransson
Here I am, nine again, already unable to sleep the normal way so I experiment, an untrained musician inventing new forms. Head where my feet should be. Mid-bedspread dormouse curl. Last night, disastrously, I slid under the bed, face facing the wall, finally fell. I wake in a cold tunnel, crunched between bedsprings and floorboards. No memory of boxing myself in this living grave. Horror eats my cries for Mom, for Dad, for the guardian angel they swear I have though I’ve never seen even a shining wingtip. I’m alone with my breath. Leaving me. In jerks. It’s worse than the nightmares of being left on beaches, hilltops, in dim echoing parking lots. The hard narrowness refuses to melt away. My ribcage is locked, I don’t have the key. Finally, the grammar reveals itself: bedsprings, floor, wall. Parts of everyday speech, expressed at a slant. Even now, writing this, my chest hardens to
varnished pine. No to all boxes.
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