PETER COOLEY

Twenty Line Sonnet

When time ends, then eternity begins.
I’ve had my moments there while I am here.
To talk about it in a place like this,
the “little room,” as Sidney called our form,
the sonnet, with its predetermined rules,
this is a “safe place,” as the shrinks name it:
you won’t laugh at me in my fourteen lines.
Already I have used half my allotment!

Like everyone, I’ve lost all space and time
in sex, the mad explosions
we call “love” because it is—“love” by the minute hand.

But my entrance into a nether space
more often shapes itself in ordinaries:
I’ve seen straight through and entered in
the other side just picking up a leaf.

I picked one up this morning; it was white.
It must have blown for centuries to hold
this many faces—all along its veins
I saw new colors indescribable
in language up to now. I can’t go on—