How to write a sonnet

Beginnings – I’d start there, I’d start with you -

that is the sole, central hypothesis -
it morphs to both argument and premise
and a summing beyond debate, and true
in all positions, from each point of view.
The rhythms I’d pick up from your sturdy wrists
no figures of speech required, no smart twists
of language, just fourteen plain lines would do.

For you are the poem, its start and end

the lightning fork, the naked flame, the plume
of grass, the forest’s silent canopy;
you are the sonnet’s sharp post-octave bend
words written, wreathed in papery perfume
and in some ancient birth given to me.