Bar Napkin Sonnet # 24 [by Moira Egan]

BAR NAPKIN SONNET #24

It’s wicked to admit I love these bruises,
the set of fingerprints along my hip
that an FBI Agent could dust and use
to track him down.  I love the boy-stung lips
from hours kissing, lips soft, but his whiskers
grown rougher with the hours into night,
and rougher still, we move together, quicker,
as if our muscles’ work brought on the light.
Mornings like this, I’m torn between two notions:
Are love’s inscriptions like a form of art,
or injuries incurred from constant motion:
tennis elbow, carpal tunnel, arrhythmic heart?
And  you should see my scars  I sit alone,
a glass of wine, a napkin, and my pen.

SONETTO SUL TOVAGLIOLINO DI UN PUB #24

E’ perverso ammettere che adoro queste ammaccature,
la serie di impronte digitali sui miei fianchi
che un agente segreto saprebbe rilevare e usare
per rintracciarlo. Adoro i graffi d’uomo stanchi
dopo ore di baci, labbra morbide, ma le sue basette
irruviditesi con il passare della notte
sono piu’ ruvide ancora, e ci muoviamo insieme, ancora
piu’ svelte, come se i muscoli in moto accendessero l’aurora.
Le mattine cosi’ ho due pensieri, e mi tormento:
i graffiti dell’amore sono forme artistiche
o solo danni inferti da ininterrotto movimento –
gomito del tennista, tunnel carpale, aritmie parossistiche?
E “dovresti vedere le mie cicatrici”: resto sola al tavolino
con la mia penna, un tovagliolo di carta e un bicchiere di vino.

-- Moira Egan

Comments

[DL]

Wicked in every sense. What a wonderful word that is -- ranging from "naughty" to "wicked cool," with an echo of diabolism and damnation. With your gift for rhyme, I wonder whether you can (would, will) write a sonnet with "wicked" as one of the end words?
PS Favorite sound patterns here: bruises / hip / use /lips / whiskers / quicker; ancora / aurora.

[Moira]

Thank you! and consider it an assignment: I will write a sonnet with wicked as an end word.