Poetry: “Subconscious Sonnet 113” by Seif-Eldeine
There’s a intriguing and appealing rhythm to the word association that guides Seif-Eldeine’s “Subconscious Sonnet 113.” Sometimes the shifts make sense and the direct rhyme is clear, with the kind of connection that can instantly appear in your head. The poem does market itself as “subconscious,” after all. In other moments, it’s less clear, like when we go from “Pork fried rice” to “lovely.” Maybe we just haven’t had enough lovely pork fried rice. Maybe the restaurants in our hood just aren’t doing it right.
The sonnet’s thinly veiled obsession with Lucy—and this awkward connection—betray itself shortly after. Suddenly we know too much, and that’s good poetry. Suddenly, we hear the speaker’s worries about the drug-addicted brother. But the poem quickly backtracks. There’s a level of escapism written in between the lines; perhaps that’s the subconscious. Maybe it’s just another lonely, lovely person, trying to make associations between things that might be similar, but maybe they’re not.
Subconscious Sonnet 113
To all my girls in the hood; all my girls
wearing hoodies. To all my homeys. Home
fries. Fried bacon. Pork fried rice. It’s lovely.
You’re lovely, Lucy. You will not look me
in the eyes. I don’t know why. Maybe you
are shy. Maybe you’ll let it go. Blow, blow,
blow. My brother does blow. I am worried
about him. He comes into work late. He
was up all night blowing. FIFA. We make
quite the FIFA team. D6. Mighty Ducks,
D2. Iceland. Iceland verse USA.
All night long. We can do it all night long.
Only if we are married. I want to
marry you, Lucy. Just got to get you.
Seif-Eldeine
Seif-Eldeine is the author of "Voices from a Forgotten Letter: Poems on the Syrian Civil War," which won the Chestnut Review Chapbook Contest and was named a Top 100 Indy Book by Kirkus Reviews. He has received a grant from The Massachusetts Cultural Council, an Emerging Poet's Fellowship from the Writer's Colony at Dairy Hollow, and residencies at the Vermont Studio Center and Yaddo. He has been published in Poetry Daily, Copper Nickel, the Massachusetts Review, and Poetry International, among others.
