15
She is a cloud in her own sunny day.
The damp spot on a rock under the lip.
She is the flaw that cracks the fired clay,
The bubble that will break the binding slip.
She is the world after the rapture comes,
The one left in the field, the one left grinding.
History over, she’s the drop that drums
In drainpipes without anybody minding.
She is the definition of alone.
And I am one who makes things up about her,
The way the sky makes weather for the earth.
And she is one who lets that happen to her,
The way the dirt will let you take a stone
Into your hand and calculate its worth.
—Mark Jarman, “Sonnet 15” from Unholy Sonnets (Story Line Press, 2000)
