Sestina

by Jonah Goldberg

Pressing against an anxious bathtub

I remember the scheming birds

Watching me slip and fall

Then making my way to Target

Shopping there, where no one

Could bear witness to my torture

Every night is torture

Falling asleep in the bathtub

In my dreams I wait for no one

Because they have been eaten by birds

Now I am the final target

How much longer before I fall?

I remember your eyes last fall

A moment away from you was torture

You’d pierced my heart like a target

And joined me in my forlorn bathtub

Where we would imitate the calls of birds

For the pleasure of fooling no one

But now I walk with no one

Worried about the coming of fall

Reminded of you constantly by the birds

Whose every sweet note is torture

I return at night to the bathtub

Wondering what I forgot to buy at Target

I think I should work at Target

Where I can be treated like no one

Help people buy the right bathtub

With little steps so that they don’t fall

The fluorescent store can hold back my torture

The garish red concrete can keep out the birds

I live in fear of the birds

Because they remind me of being your target

We’d play and let go of past torture

Turning my demons into no one

Only you could save me from my fall

But now I’m left in the bathtub

Notes: The sestina is a complex form requiring the author to pick six ending words/phrases and reuse them in a specific order in each stanza:

1. ABCDEF

2. FAEBDC

3. CFDABE

4. ECBFAD

5. DEACFB

6. BDFECA

Sestinas usually end in an additional 'envoi': ACE.

My favorite sestina is one by Elizabeth Bishop.