no
was my son’s
seventh
word.

I had asked
permission
to record
what I grandly
thought
to be
the rhetoric
of the ****.

my ****** daughter
had grown by then
to say
nearby
that heaven
is the distance
to heaven, and god
uses
too many
birds.

no ear
nor entry
in the diary
of my mouth

ached.

The iambs in pentameter will dance across the page,
But in fourteeners limp along, with extra two feet left.
Once in another lifetime, writing sonnets was the rage,
The iambs in pentameter would dance across the page.

It seems the sonnet-writer now will only show his age
As more and more write free-verse, leaving formal poems bereft.
The iambs in pentameter will dance across the page,
But in fourteeners limp along, with extra two feet left.