In the parking lot after Romeo and Juliet
have killed themselves for love, after
the Capulets and Montagues
have renounced enmity, we sit stunned
in our cars by a greatness of love and loss
and traffic before us, cars star-crossed
and gridlocked, all angling for the exit,
but it is August, and in these hot days,
the mad blood is stirring, so I signal
the boney matron in the Buick blocking
my leaving so that I might merge
into the exit lane, but she turns away
from the wave of my hand to fix
a frozen stare on the bumper ahead,
O sweet my mother, cast me not away!
Have you so soon forgot that last sad speech?
Would that I pull out but a half-car length
into the lane, and so I creep forward,
and she creeps forward, then I inch,
then she inches, and I and she and I,
when finally she stops,
and breaks off her statue pose,
glares straight at me and mouths:
no damn way
and there lies more peril in her eye
than in twenty swords.
Beautiful tyrant, fiend angelical,
dear lady, I will leave this dance,
for you and I are past our dancing days,
and I intended but a small jest to raise your bile,
so depart, fly, eyes look your last
and by all means go ahead of me,
and I back away, sweep my arm
in exaggerated politeness,
go before to field, I’ll be your follower,
and good night, good night,
a thousand times good night,
Hey Mercutio, my wife tells me,
would you just calm down already.
Poetry
Summer
2011
