14th May 2014

Sonnet 144

Yes Mum, you were both comfort and despair:

Wish I believed in angels or ghosts - still

There should be something left or it's not fair

You're dead when there's loads older folks not ill?

We know Nature knows no good or evil,

Conceits keeps us looking on the bright side,

If we exorcise DNA's devil

There'll be no saints or sinners or foul pride.

Your tastes were too lurid for me I find,

I might be as gross*, but too soon to tell

How much of you I got; meet my new friend

Psychomachia** - it's not knowing's Hell.

    Yet this shall I ne'er know but live in doubt:

    Will what you've left in me get fired out?

*12x12=144=a gross (Shakespeare, not me)

**Medieval concept in which a good angel and an evil one compete for possession of a man's (laydee's) soul.