A_Perfect_Sonnet

Ben Stivers
5/21/08

For Caitlin, Whenever You Come Around

I painted you into the light of the room,
You endured the calls, of your mother's sharp tongue.
And the steps you took bounced softly on the walls,
Those sounds, we heard,
Were not disturbing the peace.
I felt, a slight shiver up my spine,
As you took your hands in mine,
Out into the waltz under moonlight.
It was 7AM, when our bodies gave in.
My throat was parched again,
But I sang right on tune.

Under bright lights, I focused right into your eyes.
Your hair was blackened under cover of night.
And we slept inside those front seats of my car,
Where neither of us found rest.
Nestled in the nooks, I'm afraid I'd never spoke
How the cold of March had felt so warm.
And what I recalled, mattered most of all,
It was the charm in your voice,
And the silence through the noise,
So I fell from the patterns into you.

"I fell through the pier, through time and through years,
I was caught by a drift, but waded through it.
And at the end of my swim, I was let back in,
By the boy I once knew as my love."

When there is not a place where our heads can lay,
I guess curiosities drive us mostly astray.
But our heat will leave this imprint in the sea,
While these cities come awash by the fog from both of us,
And lay their streets like puzzles at my feet,
As cars run through Caitlin into me.

So when a daughter becomes a lover,
And reserves herself another,
I will be the dirt, cradle her in earth,
And she will return to me.
We will be reborn, you'll see.