Gapped Sonnet
Between the blinds Past the coded locks
Past the slanted gold bars of the day
Smelling of all-night salt rain on the docks
Of grief Of birth Of bergamot Of May
In the wind that lifts the harbor litter
Wet against my fingers in a dream
Salvaging among the tideline's bitter
gleanings Generous Exigent Lush and lean
Your voice A tune I thought I had forgotten
The taste of cold July brook on my tongue
A fire built on thick ice in the winter
The place where lost and salvaged meet and fit
The cadences a class in grief is taught in
The sound when frozen rivers start to run
Copyright © 2013 by Suzanne Gardinier. Used with permission of the author. This poem appeared in Poem-a-Day on March 4, 2013.
"I wrote this in a spring Sarah Lawrence class about the sonnet, a form I love that always makes me say what I don't know I know. The punctuation is left out in my usual attempt to make the sound of a translation, from some other language I almost understand."—Suzanne Gardinier
Suzanne Gardinier
Poet and essayist Suzanne Gardinier was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, on January 25, 1961. She earned her BA at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and her MFA at Columbia University.