when I saw this poem by Tom Beckett I wondered who this Allen Bramhall is, I got good vibes from the name. well nemmind that, the poem speaks to my own idea of narrative. I appreciate Henny Youngman's jokes for their desperate succinctness. he removes the extraneous so that his jokes are almost entirely punchline (take my wife, please). I believe poems should propel themselves with the most eficient machinery. which isn't a call for short poems but dense, essential ones. the plots in novels most often are the fakest part. the logic of narrative shouldn't be so linear because that linear throb assumes too much by way of antecedents and motivation. thus the episodic jounce interests me more. momentary revelations. so the 14 parts of Tom's poem are expansion points. the narrative occurs within these points but also, more importantly within the realm defined by the title. where such questions as these occur: why is this called a sonnet? how are these 14 stories tied together? why do these stories seem to be answers to unasked questions? it's deftly done, because if these are boiled down from stories, what the reader gains is not a reconstitution of each story but a renewal of the terms of story. the starting point is revitalized with new possibiities. anyway, that's my riff.