Sonnet for All the Times I Ate Breakfast with a Lump in My Throat

by John Dorroh

Let all my rejections serve as places to start
being jerked from my mother’s tit, slung
by torn artery into the bosom of a wolf.
The mispelled word that cost me my first
ride in a plane to Memphis, the time I got
popped with a twisted wet towel on bare ass
in 7th-grade gym just because someone
in the group stole another boy’s wallet.
I hate you, Coach Page, for harboring
such a distorted philosophy. The time my
mother caught me having sex with a neighbor
boy and said it would crush my father if he
knew. I was ready to jump out of the box
and look my future in the face. It ends well.