For all the times I say I’m sorry
engaging my mouth before my brain,
thinking (not really thinking), I worry
I didn’t mean to sound critical again.
Together four decades, married just once,
he leaves socks on the floor by the TV,
picks his teeth with a click that makes me wince,
the little things each day we can’t seem to flee.
Why can’t I be quiet and hold my tongue,
he tells me I nag him, I understand his point.
I rephrase and reframe so not to be among
those couples who bicker totally out of joint
who argue the small stuff as though they are driven.
Please erase my words, I ask (again) to be forgiven.

—Annette Langlois Grunseth

JUDGE’S COMMENTS: “This poem is a formal poem, a sonnet, specifically a Shakespearean one we know from its rhyme scheme, and I much admire the handling of this venerable received form. The rhymes are unobtrusive, the choice of words, the diction, every-day, helping to create a contemporary, conversational, and quietly intimate tone. Dealing with one's impatience within the context of a long marriage is the theme, the problem with which the sonnet, as well as the speaker, grapples. The poem captures so well the tedium and static tension of long (or maybe not so long!) marriage -- those socks always left on the floor, that picking of teeth. Nonetheless, this speaker knows herself and her contribution to the problem. By the time we get to the turn of the closing couplet, she's recommitted herself to the marriage and asks her husband ‘(again)’ to be forgiven.”