The Archbishop Is Dying

Sun-blasted madrona, blue-blasted sky, jangled days
startled on occasion by love.

Romeo so patiently trying to find words for Juliet
cold-sheeted in the emergency room.
He places her cool hand against his hot cheek,
tries to breathe words beneath her skin. 

While down the hall Olivia begs Viola not to go.
She knows who Cesario is
and loves her even more.
She slips her hand into the other’s body,
through that spot just to the right of the heart,
not to harm but to be that close,
hand passed full through,
now embracing, pulling two bodies into one if only for so long
as it takes to play the balcony scene.

The archbishop is dying before our eyes.
The altar holds him up,
his voice fades in the final prayers
soft, soft, soft as the wafer
quiet as the wine kissing the edge of the cup
soft as the sound of oil on eyelids.

Trigorin on the hospital steps smoking, 
waiting for a cab to take him to the airport hotel.
He has a morning flight to Denver or Louisville.
He hears Nina’s soft tears and gentle laughter through paper walls
covered with images of Ophelia, newspaper headlines, fragments of Komachi’s poems.

The stars spin round the Madrona tree now blasted by moonlight,
chimes from the porch of a house tell the wind.

Wakened now at 4:32 a.m.,
gashed conversations
still rumble in the still of morninged night.