To the Man who gave Her candy

I don't especially love writing sonnets, because I feel way too forced. For my class this week, however, I had to write one. It was difficult enough to stick to iambic pentameter, so there's no rhyme scheme. I thought the subject matter was appropriate for a sonnet [it's a true experience, too] but I still feel it would be better to allow it to breathe more, to add more sensory descriptions because the senses are extremely significant in this experience. Anyway, here it is:

The jellybeans have hardened in the jar;

My grandma in the kitchen, soaking flowers

by bowls of sweets that burst when you bit in,

so gently wrapped in golden crinkled plastic

that sounded like the rumbling of trains

that took the victims to their final stop.

Her mother said to send the nasty thoughts

across the stream, a new messiah born.

Every day the silent tears of Auschwitz,

the smells of burning, of dirty factory work;

She prayed until the man who made the rounds

had stopped and saw the child growing old.

He placed a single hardened candy in her book;

her tongue against it wept and danced and hoped.