we used to know each other

we used to know each other.

The following is a poem exercise in which I took a classmate's poem and rewrote it. For this one I took a poem (of the same name) from local poet and artist extraordinaire Danielle Eberhard and slapped it into sonnet form, attempting to keep as many lines from her original poem (which was written in free verse) as possible.

What came out of that was a sonnet with aggressive enjambment and very hidden rhymes if you hear it rather than see it.

Enjoy.
​

we used to know each other.
after Danielle Eberhard
​
I see along the surface of the water in
the river, flowing faces I don’t know
or maybe would have known if they had been
of more importance to my river’s flow
of sour memory. Their mouths are peach
and melt in pools of red and sickly brown
that dissipates in waters I can’t reach
like words they spoke that long ago have drowned.
the current tugs their eyes into its cold
and empty pits just as my own two eyes
are dragged into the memories of old
and cold in which a half-nostalgia lies.
instead I find the dots on the horizon
ignoring that which I don’t have my eyes on.