After Sonnet 59
William,
In this miracle composed of your frame,
I am here writing over your sonnet in spring 2022.
On my TikTok feed someone is trying to modernize the Golden Girls.
See— look how much younger & better they look with an updated ‘do.
But they are all dead now
& I realize that Dorothy and Blanche are younger than me there
& I conclude this is not cool.
& now I try the Pam Anderson filter
& remember when my eyebrows were that thin
& when women coveted bolted on boobs
instead of Brazilian Butt Lifts, lip flips, & microblading.
My Mom said to never wax the brows.
Keep ‘em like Brooke Shields.
& for some reason I keep scrolling–
As Millennials & Gen X’ers argue about how good they look for 30 & 40 & 50–
& even the reboots are getting old.
& decade after decade after centuries of nothing changing,
because nothing has happened,
because there is only ever one ending.
& I just watched the Andy Warhol documentary on Netflix
& decide he would totally fit in 2022— or any decade.
(You two probably would have been buds.)
& I see Taylor Hawkins has died
& I remember seeing the Foo Fighters in 2005.
& I remember when Kurt died
& that Unplugged special MTV played on repeat in 1993
where he wore an old green cardigan
just like the one I bought at Anthropologie last week.