Sonnet, Unsent

I wrote the letter four times over, each“draft calmer than the one that came before,“until the anger, sanded to a speech,“sounded like something you could not ignore.“I did not send it. I have kept all four,“folded in order, worst to nearly kind,“a museum of the man I was before“I taught my hands what patience meant to find.“Some nights I take the first one out to read —“the one with all the words I actually meant —“and feel, for just a paragraph, freed“of every quiet thing I since have bent.“Then I refold it. Anger, given time,“learns to prefer the softer, later rhyme.“