(20th Century History)

I self-assigned a poem and chose a form
that makes the work a contest for my brain.
I need fourteen to constitute a quorum,
and they must dance and sing in fit refrain.
So here’s a sonnet searching for a smoke.
It’s Sunday 20 years ago. I need
not heroin, nor opium, nor coke;
you know where I can get a little weed?

I need illegal cannabis to kink
into a cylinder with tapered ends.
It works in me like medicine – I think
more comprehensively, my wit extends
outside the lines, my jaw is not as tight,
and I can shift enough to pen me right.