Jeanne Wagner: “Honeydew Sonnet”
HONEYDEW SONNET
If you weep, don’t feel as gauche as the rain,
blubbering in gullies, choking the eaves,
wearing out its welcome. Think of the trees
exuding a sweet waste from their wounds.
Seep tears like blood from a holy icon.
Do you remember our oak weeping solo
in the porchlight’s circle? Its silent song.
Limbs glistening in the cold, festive air.
Sugary mist raining down its soft rain.
Almost Christmas, the leaves still yellow.
Honeydew it’s called, like an endearment.
If you want to weep, make it mellow,
let it stand in its own weather, glow like
a halo. Don’t be as gauche as the rain.
Jeanne Wagner is the author of four chapbooks and three full-length collections. Her most recent, Everything Turns Into Something Else, was published in 2020 as runner-up for the Grayson Book Prize. She is the winner of the 2021 Joy Harjo Award and the 2022 Cloudbank Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared in North American Review, Cincinnati Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, SWWIM, and Southern Review.