As my Three Children Tidy Up their Rooms

My sons, Daniel, Julien, and Gabriel, resident sportsmen, daze through sorry rooms while I write a strict, stern paragraph. One of them stutters, protests injustice; another struts testily; the third pets our nineteen stuffed foxes. It's easier to find warm coffee than mild peace. I kick a bad ball, ever peeved. Quick, I strain to see the end of this before they're done. They attempt to fit in unusual stuff: a cactus, really? Such a stormy view from orbit on high, I see abstruse structures, unmade beds, and avidly stretch toward the even sonnet, a tactical cannon of sorts.

This sonnet has been crafted to comprise five hundred sixty characters precisely, but filler as its ink may be (surprise), it fits its witty argument quite nicely. Four hundred fifty-five letters as loom, one hundred five non-letters in between, it sings about the structure of its room and, even as it does so, paints a scene. Four sentences that gather thus to jell— four stanzas that would rather be apart— strain, as a service crew at some hotel, to pick up the debris and make it smart. One hundred words come joyfully together to admire this sonnet's cap and feather.