DEATHLY MASH-UP

She came to Canada from the Netherlands as a war bride

Raised cattle, cats, dogs, horses, gardened, and enjoyed life

Liked to say, "You are only as good as the day you are here"

Additionally,  owned a grocery store and was also a volunteer

She met her 2nd love on a blind date; they were wed 64 years

Said sometimes memories roll out of my eyes, end up tears

After a lengthy battle operating the carding machine

She indulged her passion for enjoying ice cream

Spent more than 43 years in the newspaper business

Before she passed away after a very brief illness

SATURDAY, APRIL 12: SONNET

Write a sonnet sourced from lines found in newspaper articles.

You may choose your own sonnet type ( Examples here:

http://www.sonnets.org/basicforms.htm) and should feel free to be

creative with the rules. One known Oulipo variation is “sonnets

of variable length,” in which one must compose a sonnet in which

the lines are either as short as possible or as long as possible.

Source: Edmonton Journal - Saturday April 12.2014 - Obituaries - basic sonnet with rhyming couplets, all taken from the Obituary section of the paper and very thoroughly mashed up. Very much cut and paste. I have taken great liberties here so that I would end up with rhymes and I changed the gender so that all of them would be female for the continuity of the poem.

YOU AND YOUR AFFAIRS

Laughter bubbles up inside me. Inappropriate giggles threatening to spill out all over the table and all your financial papers. Your executor has just asked me if you were married more than once. For some reason all I can think of is finding out, while settling my brother's estate (a misnomer, estate really, but never mind) that his Decree Nisi was lifted and declared Decree Final, shortly before he died. This was only two years ago so it's still fresh in my mind. We had no idea, none of us, that he had ever even been married. Now he was dead and we were learning his divorce was final. To think of my mother having another husband is so beyond the pale, I think I might start chortling and not be able to stop. The executor thinks he's insulted us, says he's required by law to ask. I cannot look at my husband. I'm not sure why it is so funny. It just is.