Sonnet #3

In the dream of the life you did or did not live, disease spins eddies in the blood of your kin and bullets do what they will in the dark. Yet the repast still smells of fried cat sh and ham hocks—someone must make a run for more hot sauce. In the dream that is memoir, you died before a king tide swept through the city and reshaped coastline and inland escape without bias, before anyone could solve the brutal mystery of blue—you never gave Maggie Nelson the time of day. What about gray— the brain’s subtle decay, another coast left lifeless, left longing in rank silence.