Other Places,
Other Times
The Triumph of Death
In this version, Death is a winged skeleton in the clouding sky.
He holds an hourglass in one hand and a long, sharp lance in the other.
It is poised to skewer a fleeing girl, her arms outstretched, her eyes on him.
They are in the middle ground, with sunny hills and a quiet town in the distance.
In the foreground, close to the front, a well-dressed couple sits conferring.
She glances toward the fleeing girl, seemingly undisturbed. He averts his gaze.
Apparently lost in reverie, another seated woman inspects her lowered wine cup.
Behind some rocks a couple snuggles amorously, or perhaps does more.
Wherever you choose to look in this disturbingly calm scene, you can imagine
Death standing somewhere behind you, discretely admiring the art.
Rooms
She claimed she didn't remember me,
how I helped her get here to escape gambling debts,
or how, to heal my heartbreak, she taught me to dance.
That night, after she drank too much,
I brought her safely to her hotel room.
The next day I returned there and asked for her.
The clerk said there was no Lulu in that room.
There had been a Mimi in that room, but she had left.
Later, I learned that a jealous boyfriend killed her there.
But I prefer to imagine her transforming into a white crane
that flew away to live in a perfect upper world.
I asked for that room. The manager said it needed to be redecorated.
Intending to occupy it when ready, I moved into a neighboring room.
There, through the thin walls between the rooms, I listened
to the manager's elder daughter in Lulu's emptied room
as she obsessively rehearsed conversations with an absent lover
her heels clicking on the wood as she turned in small circles
repeating herself as troubled people in love sometimes do.
To me, as she paces she is a leopard gradually shedding its spots
finally becoming wholly white and solely good.