Teaching the Rocks to Swim: 2012 Attys Entry by Lee Rudolph

Sonnet in Tetrameter: Bedtime Story

You told me a story. My

thoughts circled your voice, like moths

buffeting a streetlamp. Bedclothes

kicked off, sweating through summer, I

could not understand the trick,

how, in the dark, you disappeared:

only a voice remained. I heard

that dying, too; until the tick

of crickets, noise of distant cars,

conversations on the street,

merged with my breath and my heartbeat:

I fell asleep. A story, yours

or older, told itself to me.

I awoke, damp with tears or sweat.