sonnet in the modern manner

[Alan Sondheim]

sonnet in the modern manner

my mother appears. she's thirty, we're talking she tells me my father is
going to have chemotherapy 'as a preventive measure.' i say this is non-
sense, there's nothing wrong with him, he's 90, he doesn't need anything,
it's too crippling. we're arguing like crazy, i'm crying. he's right
behind you, she says, i turn, he's napping lightly on the couch. i'm
almost hysterical now. it worked for me, she says. she's dead, the phone
rings. the homeopathic chinese herbs for the cat will cost forty cents per
pill, eighty cents a day. i don't believe in homeopathy. i've got enough
trouble. there are nazis after me, mutilated bodies. as jesus christ, i
would give my right hand to save all of mankind. i would give my right
hand as well and my other limbs. i would permit photography of the BLOODY
STUMP. as jesus christ i would absolutely do this. letters may be trans-
posed, substituted, enumerated, shifted, markov-chained, filtered, written
or rewritten according to any function. finite differences welcomed.

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