(Week One) Improvisation #1 of The Sonnet

Of Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Ozymandias"

I met this woman in another village
who spoke out one side of the mouth,
barely awake but rising like the sun--a pillage
much better than hymns in the way, couth,
her arms bend back against heat and bondage.
Two children play at her feet, unaware. Languish
reminds the muscles in each step, feat, in both hands.
She is dying. All of the body mocks her. All wish
the heart would give over, stop. But today commands
her to move: the little ones need to nurse, a bucket of fish
shake like socks on a clothesline, and the clothes understand
why they're still splayed across rusting wire, punished.
Of this woman, boundless and bare, a world rants.
I see myself out, walk along the dirt like a friend, subsist.