Orpheus/Sonnet

Orpheus/Sonnet - Patricia Barber

These days, I have become a collector

Tender of the flimsy, yellow, and still

Putting one foot in front of the other

I take the formless to heart, and I fill

Pots with dirt and myself with cold white wine

Utterly beside the point in straw hat

And fussing with flowers, I am consigned

Neither to here nor there, to this and that

Long since the Furies cried, I’ve been alone

For gods don’t rejoice in the death of two

Doggedly, like Sisyphus and his stone

I push, but second chances are so few

When I stumble, kind eyes avert their gaze

And we fall each time I look back, these days