Tomorrow Could Be a Sonnet

tomorrow is another day

we’ve seen before

another day of dodging exhales

the sun again falling and getting up

glowing horizons stretched thin with smoke

tomorrow is one more day of delta

breaches over sandbagged vaccines

a waiting room of doctors

who know no cure

tomorrow is another day

like today plodding along

like the day before that

confined to a book-lined room

where stories fail to fill wanderlust

where hope hides in an empty suitcase

with rusty hinges

tomorrow waits to board a plane

shoulder a carry-on crammed

with tumbling case numbers

forests that only smolder

but then, a stallion storm gallops through

the night, kicks over water troughs

ping pong rain balls bounce

off parched soil

and for the first time in a long time, tomorrow

could be a sonnet that blows a cool breeze

turning white wildfire ash to confetti

arid to sodden, inhale to exhale

Valerie Sopher is grateful to Slant Poetry, Canary, Caustic Frolic, River Mouth Review, Quiet Diamonds (Orchard Street Press), Science Write Now and Wingless Dreamer (contest winner), among others, for publishing her work and to the Ina Coolbrith Circle Annual Poetry Contest and the Benicia Library Love Poetry Contest for honoring and selecting her poems. She is a singing quilter who loves anything to do with paper, pens and words. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.