Coming to Terms

 

 

 My sonnet, "Coming to Terms" won third prize in the 2021 Better Than Starbucks sonnet contest.

HERE is the link to the top ten poems. Below is the poem.

Thank you to Editor-in-Chief, Vera Ignatowitsch.

 

Coming to Terms

 

I set aside my one-size-fits-all shirt,

my pants with the elastic tummy-panel,

as music to a silent world of hurt

strains from a distant country-western channel.

 

Still, there’s compassion. I’ve been granted leave —

a week in which to heal and convalesce,

to peel away the glow-stars, to unweave

the year I’d stitched onto your christening dress.

 

I rearrange my premises — perverse

assumptions! — gather unripe figs. Throw out

the bloodied bedclothes. Scour the universe

in search of you. And God. And go about

my business as my crooked smile displays

the artful look of ordinary days.

 

 -- Catherine Chandler