NONCE SONNET 4
Make-
up’s op-
portunities
to streak: rush
hour. The PA
system organizes
muck, and my luck
is behind one who’d
rather preempt humble
conjecture with a jeremiad
than reach his pristine bar or seedy
bower before the late show. The power
to tuck in high-tech earplugs is encouraged
by a paper friend unless I’m inclined to ride bass
lines below unmodulated treble. You might pluck
an expiring flower from the waiting room floor to save it
for an aspiring gatherer’s open pouch. Where farming of image
is neither inherently devil (e.g. stealing from those presumed mute)
nor blessed delivery, where ouch is neither trounced nor deified, she’ll
pitch a scrimmage for poetics. Where any ceiling is unafraid to fluctuate.
—Thomas Fink