Sonnet Rewrite

[Brownlie]

Warrior

His wife, as thin and tensioned as a wire,
gets woozy when the needles puncture him.
She jerks and leaves, her spine a rod of ire,
because I touched his tubes. Her mouth went grim;
now, pacing in the hall, she looks for aid
from anyone professionally trained.
Her anguished face is angled like a blade; -- This is pretty good.
her whole demeanor timid rage restrained. -- Perhaps a facial expression that explains a demeanor of timid rage.
How can I tell her now about the past?
I taught him what I know of Bushido:
in face of fear to hold his courage fast, -- Linguistic inversion here.
to choose where love and loyalty should go.
He was my student; now he's teaching me
That faithfulness can be our enemy. -- I like the ending.

 
My advice is the following: clear up inversions, try to present tactile representations of the abstractions, and clear up any redundancy. This is a pretty good poem.