Sonnet

It’s been

forty nine years

since Granddaddy gave me written

Instructions by post,

“You must write a sonnet.”

I was ten years old.

Now I promise to get on it.

The man from Missouri did not

coax or cajole me.

He simply died.

Two weeks before that 

he telephoned,

reciting to me the Ides of March.

I am still not off the hook

on this sonnet.

Get on it!

Rowena Dunlap Burke

July 2016