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On Getting Raped by Sonneteers
For Erica

Not as awful as you might think
if you think paradelles in English are erotic.

Not that rape is erotic but
occasionally sonnets are sexy,
unfortunately it wasn't the sonnets
that plied me with sparkling wine and
fourteen lines of this; and this;
but this; and moreover.

It was four professors emeriti and one of those
depraved new formalists. They cornered me,
drizzled iambic pentameter until I was dizzy,
caught me off guard with a viscous troche.

Names? Didn't catch any, but one kept
muttering, "Call me Kid Shakespeare"
while another whispered, "You're no
Elizabeth Bishop, toots,
you're not even a Sexton wannabe
from Words for Dr. Y."

Now even I'm questioning my own
recollection of these events.
Maybe the sonneteers never touched me.
Maybe they never even
acknowledged my presence.
Maybe it was just the way their
lips moved when they read
that brought me down a few meters,
filled me with so much self doubt.