Poem: Marcello's Lament

 

 

Marcello's Lament

(For Robert Pesich)

"To the ancient Egyptians, these stars (of Orion's Belt) were the resting place of the soul of Osiris, god of the underworld and a symbol of creativity and the continuity of life…"

            --National Audubon Society Field Guide to the Night Sky

Starving tenor finds the stone on a

black sand beach covered in driftwood

(If I said the wood was white as bones

I would be giving it away)

He kneels on the sand

where the ocean comes through the rocks

and reaches into the ribs of a burnt-out cello

plowing a pyramid of blackened chars

until he fingers the edges of its mineral heart

and pulls it into the sun

(If I said it was as red as Betelgeuse

I would be lying)

The stone is a jealous stone

it takes away his lovers

takes away his sleep

leaves his pockets thin and sallow

She is

Musetta, the woman you cannot

have

but if you hold her to your ear

she will sing you bright waltzes

and turn her lollipop eyes at you across the café

But the song and the glance are not enough

so Marcello takes the stone and grinds it up

spreads it across his Sunday salad

(If I said the dressing was Roquefort

I would be saying too much)

The fragments trunkle their way through his veins

and gather at the aorta

pressing northward to make his heart skip

on nights when Artemis neglects her duty

and mountainside lanterns

burst like meteors through the Paris streets

Years after Mimi's last breath

he comes back to the sea to

bare his skin to the inkwell sky

and wait for Orion's Belt to burn him down

leaving a coal as red as Betelgeuse

for the timpani waves to steam away

From the collection Great Showtunes of the American Stage

First published in Eclectic Literary Forum

(Tonawanda, New York)

Photo by MJV