This sonnet was written during a period of experimentation. I was playing with a more casual style than the ultra-formal, quasi-Victorian one I had been using before this. I tried, in this poem and in others of that period, to hide both meter and rhyme underneath very conversational language, abundant enjambment, and even dividing words at the ends of lines to mask the rhyme. This actually gave me a greater ease and freedom with the sonnet form, so that when I later pulled back into a stricter formality, the results were more fluid and flexible, and less self-conscious, than they had been in the beginning.
Intercession
Since you will not, then I will pray instead.
I cannot sit here idly by and watch
you turn away in anger. I have read
the bitter words you wrote; I know the lash-
ings out in rage that temporarily
emasculate the man you really are.
The fight is every bit as fierce for me,
for life is but a constant waging war
against ourselves. And since you will not fight,
then I must soldier on for both of us.
My prayers will sing continuously, despite
the weakness of my voice and soul. My trust
is strong—and though yours may not be, I cannot care:
for what could Heaven be to me, without you there?
© Leticia Austria 2008
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