Sometimes, without warning, five page essays about Don Quixote become fourteen line Shakespearean sonnets about Don Quixote.
A Sonnet for Ana Perlerina
Though Ana’s blue of lip and green of skin
Her pockmarks are the graves of doting men
Though smallpox rot her left eye from within
The right one is more beautiful than ten
Her back stoops like a daisy without drink
To shield defenseless suitors from her eye
Though ten or twelve teeth fell out in the sink
Her soft, wide mouth and gums provoke my sigh
Her legs seem shapely underneath the sheet
Though palsy keeps her tucked into her bed
Her hair is thin and sparse like blighted wheat
Behold the luscious smoothness of her head
Would she accept a scorched and wrinkled man?
Flower! Pearl! Extend your withered hand!
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