Two Sonnets by Anthony Opal

Sonnet

no longer allowed inside the temple
I take pills in order to access
the absent G-d shaped door a portico
some real King David shit waiting around
the back of the canvas huddled in clefts
itching my chest from withdrawal and having
the wherewithal to withstand it all I
find myself cleaved from innocence by
experience and thus live by Blake-light
while the hell of “we strive for five” exists
somewhere just down the way and around the
corner as sunlight streaks the streets like
water only more beautiful as sunlight
is able to be displaced by a shadow

Sonnet

oh dear god-and-a-half dear action painter
dear compassionate sloth and hammerhead
shark who willingly gave up the hammer
dear directionless and each and every
direction all at once my dear homeless
zookeeper dark inverted sun and broke
winged finch healed winged falcon oh my dear
surprising January rain come quickly
and slope off the rooftops like prophets’ voices
in the southern wind which brought it to them
not beyond infection or cancer or
lupus or arthritis or fevers or
gout but rather those unseen jet-streams howling
throughout the land to break things up again

Anthony Opal lives near Chicago and edits The Economy.  His poems have appeared in Poetry, Boston Review, Sixth Finch, and elsewhere. To read more, visit www.anthonyopal.com.

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