All those poets, with their delicate
faces, the rote way I relegate
their taut verses : Alluvial traces,
Marsupial purses, Tightly coiled cases.

Their animal hands, their angelic minds,
the various cants of their labored lines.
I draw from this strange sonnet’s brevity
a taxonomic range of verse levity.
—

Roy Beckemeyer, from Wichita, Kansas has recently published in The Midwest Quarterly, The North Dakota Quarterly, Nebo, Straylight, and The Bluest Aye. His debut collection of poetry, Music I Once Could Dance To is available from Coal City Press.