Sonnet #1

The memory of muscles lasts as deep as flesh
My body remembers sliding home through sand
Childhood hours in practice for the war
In bedrooms, phantom soldiers, goblin kings
As boys we practiced hard for glorious things
Old muscles know, and they remember more
The way to throw a football like a man

My fingers try to hold wheat stalks and thresh
To grind the grain in stones, to pick when ripe
To watch the sky and know when rains will come
My instincts ought to know to live and scratch
But no, just call a taxi, feel naked with no watch

Body remembers centurion's glorious call to Rome
Alone and grown, a dream unbattle, fresh