Sonnet

It’s how they kept the memories after the Split:

Italian memories flow suavely through their minds.

Spenser makes the compact with grace and grit;

Wyatt demonstrates that which unbinds binds.

Shakespeare’s love life is a four-act play,

Each sonnet speaks a part in someone’s story.

Donne’s rarely at a loss as to what to say

While the Rossetti’s restore its primal glory.

Hopkins unlocks English to fly from his hand;

Auden clocks the moments of lost and found;

Lowell knocks them out like a rocknroll band;

Berrigan mocks the sense but keeps the sound.   

It is a pretty supper put before us to dine,

This baker’s dozen with each its own punch-line.