From Pop Sonnets. Published by Quirk Books in 2019.
In bygone days, I purchas’d my first lute, then strumm’d its strings until my fingers bled. I form’d a modest troupe that ne’er took root, for James bow’d out and Jody left once wed. ’Twas then I met thee too; each night would send me to thy mother’s porch, where we would swear our promises of love without an end; but youthful oats aren’t often brought to bear. Those summer days seem’d preternat’rally good despite my digits’ pain, our later strife; if I could live them evermore, I would— for those, in truth, were th’ best days of my life. —Yea time has marchèd on; now here I pluck my instrument and rue my changèd luck.
Bryan Adams, “Summer of ’69”