Jonathan Catherall

After Pierre de Ronsard’s Sonets pour Helene

II.XIV

Si de voz douz regards je ne vais me repaistre

the scary bit is when your two blue ticks
come alight and I know you’re looking through
the message to the medium and even
in Lewisham the Stockholm Syndrome
is alive and well and death repeated
every minute is the easy bit and death
comes regularly as the rat-tat-tat
of unheard letters gone untapped
and death is just your tribute act and
still the gaze and gauze of those two blues
seize what follows as a seal of loss
as I go back the hundredth time to look
at those two lit ticks asking absolutely

nothing

Jonathan Catherall has had poems published recently in PN Review, Shearsman, and Poetry Salzburg Review. He edits the online magazine Tentacular.