How to Write a Sonnet

Alone once, looking for inspiration

I went to the basement

bumping my head on low

hanging duct work.

It is deep and dank

with dim lighting were

the freezer is kept.

Afraid to go down alone

for ice cream. An ideal place

for hand shackles, kink,

if the low ceiling permits

snapping bull whips.

In the corner only a child could see the horses running through the scented clover looking for fallen sweet bug filled apples near the fences.

It reminds me of when the wax museum

my parents would take us

on visits to Niagara Falls.

A room made into a medieval style

of torture I have never forgotten

the display of a cage with a rat.

The wax figure of a man, shackled

hands and feet attached to the

wall, he looks towards the ceiling

in despair. The cage strapped

to his abdomen while the rat

ate away slowly at his belly flesh.

All I found was my old Slip-and-Slide

discarded in the concrete terrazzo sink

left to dry, then forgotten.

Under the sink—Barbie’s camper ,

G.I. Joe in the driver's seat clinching

the steering wheel with king fu grip .

Makes me wonder about Barbie.

Beyond that I found nothing inspiring

until under a small window on the far side,

light barely piercing grime and years

of cobwebs sits a table with sixteen books

stacked like a sonnet—old Readers Digests

from the ‘70’s my mom never read

is more disappointment—I kick over

a bottle below the table, blew off the dust

—Baby Duck —still uncorked.