Claudia Gary

Roadkill
(patterned on Shakespeare’s Sonnet 19)

Clenched firmly in the armadillo’s paws,
a beer can glimmers. Ever shall I brood
upon the day Love caught me in its jaws
here at the Texas Road House, in cold blood.
Unbridled two-step music, as thou fleet’st,
obliging me to step within thy time,
consider how thou guidest me toward sweets
which other days were culinary crime.
Now after dancing hard, mopping my brow,
rebuttoning my blouse, grabbing my pen,
paper, and breath, I promise to allow
the wilder rhythms of creatures and men
plenty of time and space.  Nothing goes wrong
forever when you’re sloshed and not too young.

Previously published in Sonnet Scroll.

Copyright © 2014 by Claudia Gary

Claudia Gary is author of Humor Me (David Robert Books, 2006) and several chapbooks including Bikini Buyer’s Remorse. A three-time finalist for the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award, she chaired the “Sonnet in 2016” panel at the West Chester University (Pa.) Poetry Conference. In 2017 she has given a reading in Washington DC and is scheduled, so far, to participate in another panel at WCUPA and to teach Sonnet and Villanelle workshops at The Writers’ Center in Bethesda, MD.

In 2016, The Rotary Dial (Canada) featured her for its annual single-poet issue:
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/50b10fc7e4b01c11f0ede365/t/5817f9fb725e2564c2cdfc19/1477966334406/November16.pdf.

Claudia’s poems appear in journals internationally, and in anthologies such as Villanelles (Everyman Press, 2012), Forgetting Home (Barefoot Muse Press, 2013), and The Great American Wise Ass Poetry Anthology (Lamar University, 2015). She also composes art songs and chamber music, and writes articles on health for The VVA Veteran and other magazines. For more information, see http://www.pw.org/content/claudia_gary.