NICU, For Dominic Edit #2.1

[Animal Riots Activist]

NICU, for Dominic   Edit #1
You breathe, we hold ours ready for a fall; --unlike others, I really have no qualms with this first line or it's rhymed pair. w/r/t the rest of the sonnet it fits and is quite a strong start.
we watch you lifted from your mother's womb
and exhale as we hear a raucous bawl.
I count the possibilities of doom --upon reading this a couple of times I've gone back and forth about my feelings on this enjambment. I feel like it works in that the lines/rhyme pairs of a sonnet should be subtle and flow together. However, the steady canter of the rest of the poem almost seems to be broken by this enjambment, like a heart murmur. I don't think that's necessarily bad, but I do think it needs to be a conscious decision whether to enjamb or not (that isn't to say it may not be a decision you have already deliberated over, but I'm just pointing it out)
upon your toes, my abacus; shifting lines
of monitors and regulators beep
their sharp cacophony of vital signs. --really nice three lines here.
You dance the limbo of sedated sleep,
machines to graph the mysteries of dreams. --"Mysteries of dreams" throws me off here; seems a tad cliche and a tad redundant (dreams are already mysterious). I know you've changed this from your previous edit, but I don't think its there quite just yet. I actually like you're first draft version better from a poetic stand point, but that too suffers from abstraction.
I travel lines along plump palms, your future grand
achievements, sweet affairs and daring schemes,
your secret strengths revealed in each small hand.
You'll be the death of us or deepest pride,
like any other child, just multiplied. --very strong ending.

Really great work Miss Ella, just needs some minor tinkering.

Hi, ARA, I can't thank you enough for your time and helpful comments. You've helped me realize how much trouble I'm really in.
I thought removing the "and triumph" from below "I count the possibilities of doom" would soften the impact of using two lines (which I tell myself is different from unsuccessful enjambment), but I think I'm in the same place. I am trying desparely to hold onto "toes, my ababcus" but having moved it off the end of the line there's not much room to count unless I use the line above.  What to do, what to do...
Mysteries seems to be problematic, when you say you prefer the first draft, although it also was too abstract, did you mean the whole or were you referring to the mystery, mysteries line?
Again, thanks for your arrows to the weak points and and your encouragement to keep banging my head against this particular wall.

Hey Ella, glad I could help! I really don't think you're in trouble at all. In fact I think in a poem as emotionally charged as this, only needing minor tinkering by the first edit is fantastic and quite the achievement.

I definitely think "toes my abacus" needs to stay. It's undoubtedly a very tough phrase to use in IP, but lets be honest, its far too good of a line to cut. Maybe something like:

I count the possibilities of doom;
your toes [act as] my abacus. Shifting lines

Still enjambed there, but the semicolon really does a bit to separate it into a not quite so enjambed feeling. I know 'act as' isn't in IP and even worse--just like the phrase 'are like'--it turns an awesome metaphor into a still awesome, but somewhat less awesome simile. I think definitely don't use either of those but maybe play around with the words in the brackets? Like I said, I don't think the enjambment (or the word abacus and it's associated metric "land mine" ) are not necessarily a bad thing as a murmur in the poem. In fact I think you could go many ways and continue to struggle more to fix it, or find a way to draw even more attention to it, or just leave it as it is.

I do think mysteries is the shared problem, but I was referring to "graphing flares" in cahoots with mysteries as abstract. Unfortunately, I don't have any productive ideas for improving this one, sorry...

Man. Sonnets are like wind sprints for poets. Just keep fighting the good fight.
-Em