NaPoWriMo Day 26 – curtal sonnet

Day 26
Today’s prompt comes to us from Vince Gotera. The curtal sonnet is shorter than the normal, fourteen line sonnet. Instead it has a first stanza of six lines, followed by a second stanza of four, and then closes with a half-line. The form was invented in the 1800s by Gerard Manley Hopkins, who used it in his famous poem “Pied Beauty” .

Mother, take it easy

I nagged my mother about this kind of thing.
Confronting her cancer, determined to be formal
Leaning heavily, making my dad some lunch.
Standing at the counter, visibly shaking
She wanted to create the illusion of normal.
Dad perfectly capable of finding something to munch.

She used to work Saturdays, when I was a child.
He'd do the housecleaning, acting as caregiver.
Susie Homemaker, shakingly she'd hunch.
I told her to save her energy for disease reviled.
    –But she would not listen.