Sonnet - By Abigail Quart

You've given me no cause for poetry?
What cause did Dante get from Beatrice?
Engorged frustration. We're alike in this.
One look and literary history.
Contagious Keats yearned hopelessly.
Sir Philip loved Penelope in vain.
(To anyone who reads, he'll still complain
Her dog was better kissed. Don't pick on me.)

If you had crushed me in your arms instead
Of planting them across your chest, would I
Have grabbed my pen and stabbed you? It's no lie,
Had Laura said to Petrarch, "Come to bed,"
His sonnets would have scarcely come to light.
Successful lovers screw, they do not write.