sonnet 11

 The Palmistry Sonnet

My Love touches on the line where all love ends,
the crossroads in your hands, the hidden drawing
that draws upon your life. It does, at morning,
open up in your palms, to tell of events

that have occurred to you. Cuts. This etching blends
itself into your skin, traces of mourning
and pain and time -- your right hand shows a warning,
your left was born with you and shares your talents.

No one can step outside his long bloodline.
Any choice is final, for some time. My Love,
I walk alone the ways of a borderland

on which no meaning is exposed but wet sand
shows footprints and stones. A crossing. Hide, my love,
in both my hands, the direction will be mine.

sonnet 12

The Coyote Sonnet

My Love can approach beauty and be lonely,
like a coyote running along the grounds
halts without a sound -- I stopped breathing -- wolfhound
turns and looks back, eyes fixed, the shadow only

seems to move, wavers now like a shrill tone. He
disappears in the same curve: to look around
and to be the swift, ochre killer -- it daunts
me, the vanishing chills me to the bone. Me

and my love, we are one but separated
in even the need to surrender. Never
can the law of being human be broken

although it can be surpassed by the token
groans and the fewest drops of liquid ever
running in between. Mixture. We have mated.

                                            -- by Maria van Daalen