ON NOT WINNING THE NEMEROV AGAIN

     November is the harvest time, and from
     my yearly crop of sonnets I must choose
     the two or three most likely to dumb-
     found the judge and not again, as always, lose.
     I might despair for all these years, at three
     bucks sent for every verse submitted to
     a contest named for someone who might be
     my Nemesis, a ritual I might rue—
     except it drives me on and gives me cause
     to evermore refine my lines, improve
     my style, and comprehend the sonnet’s laws,
     until at last I get one in the grove.
          Of course this isn’t it.  No sonnet wins
          that talks about itself, the worst of sins.

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